Note 202 — Chapter XV

Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great institution, Canon Law, can do so most effectively by studying Common Law, in regard to woman.—Blackstone..

I have arrived at conclusions which I keep to myself as yet, and only utter as Greek φωναντα, συνετοτσι, the principle of which is that there will never be a good world for woman till the last monk, and therewith the last remnant of the monastic idea of, and legislation for, woman, i.e., the Canon Law, is civilized off the face of the earth. Meanwhile all the most pure and high-minded women in England and in Europe, have been brought up under the shadow of the Canon Law, and have accepted it with the usual divine self-sacrifice, as their destiny by law of God and nature, and consider their own womanhood outraged when it, their tyrant, is meddled with.—Charles Kingsley, Life and Letters. Letter to John Stuart Mill, of June 17, 1849.