Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[2] exception, one who for non-theological purposes is more readable than all the rest put together; and he it is, Clement of Alexandria by name, who introduced to the world in his discourses the phrase “men and women,” or “women and men,” for he uses both forms.

The truth is that Clement was a very learned Greek philosopher, who had gone through a conversion. Tie dearly loved the Greek mythology, in which women take a part so conspicuous; and though he felt bound to preach against that mythology all the time, he could not help dwelling on its picturesque details. To him every woman was a sort of reformed Artemis or Aphrodite, always tempted to relapse into her sins. The vanities of dress especially horrified him, though it surely was not in any undue profusion or variety of costume that the beautiful Greek goddesses chiefly erred. Had he lived in these times, and written for Harper's Bazaar, he would doubtless have entered his protest on every page against the new fashions on the page opposite. But his merit was that he bore his testimony, whether wise or unwise, for the benefit of both sexes alike. For women to braid false hair upon the crown of the head was no worse than for men to displace from the chin the hair that God has placed there. If women wear false hair, he says, they not only deceive men, but commit inpiety