CHAPTER FOUR

[1] In the dominion of the Count de Foix, the lord had right once in his lifetime to take, without payment, a certain quantity of goods from the stores of each tenant. Cesar Cantu.—_Histoire Universelle._

[2] Two women seized by German soldiers were covered with tar, rolled in feathers, and exhibited in the camp as a new species of bird.

[3] Among the privileges always claimed, and frequently enforced by the feudalry, was the custom of the lord of the manor to lie the first night with the bride of his tenant.—_Sketches of Feudalism_, p. 109.

By the law of “Marquette” under the feudal system (which rested on personal vassalage), to the “lord of the soil” belonged the privilege of first entering the nuptial couch unless the husband had previously paid a small sum of money, or its equivalent, for the ransom of his bride; and we read that these feudal lords thought it was no worse thus to levy on a young bride than to demand half the wool of each flock of sheep. _Article on Relation of the Sexes_.—Westminster Review.

[4] The custom of Borough-English is said to have arisen out of the Marchetta or plebeian’s first born son being considered his lord’s progeny.—_Dr. Tusler._

[5] “It is not very likely that Louis XIV thought the time would ever come when the peasant’s bride might not be claimed in the chamber of his seigneur on her bridal night. Those base laws, their revocation has been written in the blood of successive generations.”

[6] See _Feudal Dictionary_.

[7] The interests of ecclesiastics as feudal nobles were in some respects identical with those of the barons, but the clergy also constituted a party with interests of its own.

[8] M. Gerun, as quoted by Grimm, gives curious information upon this subject.

[9] Par example, dans quelques seigneuries, où le seigneur passent trois nuits avec les nouvelles marriees, il fut convenu qu’il n’en passant qu’une. Dans d’autres, ou le seigneur avant le premiere nuit seulment, on ne lui accordes plus qu’une heure.

[10] _Collins de Plancy._

[11] _Feudal Dictionary_, p. 179.

[12] Claiming the right of the first night with each new spouse.—_Boems Decisions_ 297, I-17.

[13] _Raepsaet_, p. 179.

[14] The popes anciently had universal power over the pleasures of marriage.—_Feudal Dictionary_, 174.

[15] In the transaction the alternative was with the husband; it was he who might submit, or pay the fine, as he preferred or could afford. _Relation of the Sexes._—Westminster Review.

[16] These (courts) powerfully assisted the seigneur to enforce his traditional privileges at the expense of the villeins.—_H. S. Maine._

_The courts of Bearn openly maintained that this right grew up naturally._

[17] Sometimes the contumacious husband was harnessed by the side of a horse or an ox, compelled to do a brute’s work and to herd with the cattle.

[18] He is followed by bursts of laughter, and the noisy rabble down to the lowest scullion give chase to the “cuckold.”—_Michelet._

[19] The oldest born of the peasant is accounted the son of his lord, for he, perchance it was, that begat him. When the guests have retired, the newly wedded husband shall permit his lord to enter the bed of his wife, unless he shall have redeemed her for five shillings and four pence.—_Grimm._

[20] Droit de cuissage c’est le droit de mettre une cuisse dans le lit d’une autre, ou de coucher avec le femme d’une vassal ou d’une serf.

So much scandal was caused that finally the archbishop of Bourges abolished this right in his diocese.—_Feudal Dictionary._

[21] A yoke of cattle and a measure of wheat was afterwards substituted for a money ransom, but even this redemption was in most cases entirely beyond the power of the serf.

Under the feudal system the lord of the manor held unlimited sway over his serfs. He farther possessed the so-called _Jus Primae Noctis_ (Right of the First Night), which he could, however, relinquish in virtue of a certain payment, the name of which betrayed its nature. It has been latterly asserted that this right never existed, an assertion which to me appears entirely unfounded. It is clear the right was not a written one, that it was not summed up in paragraphs; it was the natural consequence of the dependent relationship, and required no registration in any book of law. If the female serf pleased the lord he enjoyed her, if not he let her alone. In Hungary, Transylvania, and the Danubian principalities, there was no written _Jus Primae Noctis_ either, but one learns enough of this subject by inquiry of those who know the country and its inhabitants, as to the manners which prevail between the land owners and the female population. That imposts of this nature existed cannot be denied, and the names speak for themselves. August Bebel.—_Woman in the Past, Present and Future._

[22] In a parish outside Bourges the parson as being a lord especially claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband.

[23] The infamous noble who accompanied a certain notorious actress to this country in the fall of 1886, possessed forty livings in his gift.

[24] No greater proof of this statement is needed than the rapidity with which the disease brought by the sailors of Columbus spread over Europe; infecting the king on his throne, the peasant in the field, the priest at the altar, the monk and nun in the cloister.

[25] In deference to that public sentiment which required the ruler to pose before the world as a libertine, Friedrich Wilhelm I., of Prussia (1713-1740), although old and in feeble health, kept up the pretense of a liason with the wife of one of his generals, the intimacy consisting of an hour’s daily walk in the castle yard.—_August Bebel._

[26] Down to Pius IX. See _The Woman, the Priest and the Confessional_.

[27] When the Emperor Charles II entered Bourges, he was saluted by a deputation of perfectly naked women. At the entrance of King Ladislaus into Vienna, 1452, the municipal government sent a deputation of public women to meet him the beauty of whose forms was rather enhanced than concealed by their covering of gauze. Such cases were by no means unusual.—_Woman in the Past, Present and Future._

[28] _Memoirs of the Princess of Bareith_, a sister of Frederick the Great.

[29] In Russia the nobles have such rights by law over the women of their lands that the population scarcely resent the sale by auction of all the young peasants of their village. These nobles, a race once proud and mean, extravagant and covetous, full of vice and cunning, are said to be a class superior to the people. Yet they are working the ruin of their influence by multiplying in the masses the number of individuals, already very considerable, to whom they have transmitted their genius with their blood.—_A. R. Craig, M.A._

[30] London, February 1.—The Odessa correspondent of “The Daily News” says: Hunger typhus is spreading alarmingly. In large towns in this region all the hospitals are filled, and private buildings are being converted into hospitals. This is the state of affairs in Moskovskia and Viedomosti. A correspondent writing from Russia declares that the more fanatical and superstitious portion of the peasantry believe that Count Tolstoi is Antichrist, and decline to accept his bounty for fear they will thus commit their souls to perdition.

[31] Two celebrated women, Augusta, of Koningsmark, and Madame Dudevant (George Sand), traced their descent to this king.—Letters to “New York Tribune.”

[32] Adam Badeau.—_Aristocracy in England._

[33] The at one time famous “Alexandra Limp,” affecting the princess of Wales, and copied in walk by ultra-fashionable women, was said to be due to the effects of an infamous disease contracted by the princess from her husband.

[34] Rev. Dr. Varley.—“New York Sun,” July, 1885.

[35] At the beginning of the Christian era, Corinth possessed a thousand women who were devoted to the service of its idol, the Corinthian Venus. “To Corinthianize” came to express the utmost lewdness, but Corinth, as sunken as she was in sensual pleasure, was not under the pale of Christianity. She was a heathen city, outside of that light which, coming into the world, is held to enlighten every man that accepts it.

[36] Les Cuisiniers et les marmitons de l’archeveques de Vienne avaient impose un tribut sur les mariages; on croit que certains feuditaires exigeaient un droit obscene de leur vassaux qui se mariaient, quel fut transforme ensuite en droit de _cuissage_ consistant, de la part du seigneur, a mettre une jambe nue dans le lit des nouveaux epoux. Dans d’autres pays l’homme ne pouvait coucher avec sa femme les trois premieres nuits sans le consentement de l’eveque ou du seigneur du fief. Cesar Cantu.—_Histoire Universelle_, Vol. IX. p. 202-3.

[37] _Moral History of Women._

[38] There are those who to enrich themselves would not only rob their sisters of their portion, but would sell for money the honor of those who bear their name. The authority of the son during the feudal period was so absolute that the father and mother themselves often winked at this hideous traffic.—_Ibid_, p. 46.

[39] Unless an heiress, woman possessed no social importance; unless an inmate of a religious house no religious position. There are some records of her in this last position, showing what constant effort and strength of intellect were demanded from her to thwart the machinations of abbots and monks.—_Sketches of Fontervault._

[40] See page 193.—_Fleta._

[41] _Bracton_, 26, 195, 208. _Littleton’s Tenures_, 55, 174, 209.

[42] Gratain, Canon for Spain in 633, says the nuptial robe was garnished with white and purple ribbons as a sign of the continence to which young married people devoted themselves for a time.

[43] Eight young men, living in the vicinity of North Rose, Wayne County, have been held to await the action of the grand jury for rioting. A young married couple named Garlic were about to retire for the night when they were startled by the appearance of a party of men in the yard. The party immediately commenced beating on pans, discharging guns and pistols, pounding with clubs, screaming and kicking at the doors of the house. The bride and groom were terrified, but finally the groom mustered enough courage to demand what the men wanted there. Shouts of “Give us lots of cider or we’ll horn you to death,” were the answers. An attempt was made to break in a rear door of the house. The bride and groom and John Wager, who was also present in the house, braced the doors from the inside to prevent a forcible entrance, and the inmates had to defend the property nearly all night. The horning party, at last weary of calling for cider, left the premises giving an extra strong fusillade of firearms and a series of yells as they departed. The eight young men were arrested a few days later on suspicion of being in the horning party.—_Press Report_, Jan. 14, 1887.

[44] Whenever we discover symbolized forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people employing them there were corresponding realities. McLennon.—_Studies in Ancient History_, p. 6.

[45] He was thrown into the moat to cool his ardor, pelted with stones, derided as a proud and envious wretch.—_Michelet._

[46] The maids redeeme their virginities with a certain piece of money, and by that Terme their lands are held to this day. Heywoode.—_History of Women_, London, 1624; _Lib._ 7,339.

[47] Margaret was canonized in 1251, and made the Patron Saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up in the famous practice until a late date. One of the earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as “Earl Brant,” in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right, the literal translation of _droit de jambage_.—_Sketches of Feudalism._

[48] The feeling is common in the north that a laird, or chieftain, getting a vassal’s or clansmen’s wife or daughter with child, is doing her a great honor. Burke.—_Letters from an English Gentleman_, about 1730.

[49] _Pres de cet etang, et devant sa maison._

[50] In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man’s heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally. Michelet.—_La Sorciere_, p. 62.

[51] Among the rights asserted by the Protestant clergy in the middle ages, and which caused much dispute, was exemption from lay jurisdiction even in cases of felony.

From the throne downward every secular office was dependent upon the church. Froude.—_Times of Erasmus and Luther._

[52] Among these de coucher avec leur femmes, d’enlever les premices de leurs filles.

[53] _H. S. Maine_.

[54] In Babylon every young woman was obliged once in her life to offer her person for sale, nor was she permitted to leave the temple, where she sat with a cord about her waist, until some stranger taking it in hand led her away. The money thus obtained passed into the treasury of the temple as her “purchase money, or redemption, releasing her from farther prostitution, and permitting her marriage, which was forbidden until such sale had been consummated.”

[55] Although a similar custom is said to have prevailed in India under Brahaminical rule, it must be remembered that wherever found it is an accompaniment of the Patriarchate, and under some form of religion where the feminine is no longer considered a portion of the divinity, or woman allowed in the priesthood.

[56] It has been too readily believed that the wrong was formal, not real. But the price laid down in certain countries exceeded the means of almost every peasant. In Scotland, for instance, the demand was for several cows, a price immense, impossible.

[57] _Christian History, First Period_, by Joseph Henry Allen.

[58] In the history of Julius Caesar there is something peculiarly curious and mythical. Caesar had all the honors paid to him as to a divine person. At the end of five years a festival was instituted to his honor, as to a person of divine extraction. A college of priests was established to perform the rites instituted for the occasion. A day was dedicated to him, and he had the title also of Julian Jove, and a temple was erected to him.—_Anacalypsis_, I, 611.

[59] Law of the first night.

[60] The lord’s right.

[61] Leg right—the right to place a naked leg in bed with the bride.

[62] Droit de cuissage, c’ele droit de mettre une cuisse dans le lit d’une autre, ou de coucher avec le femme d’un vassal, ou d’un serf.

[63] Droit d’afforge, the right to prey upon the bride.

[64] Droit de marquette, took its name in Scotland from the redemption piece of money, a demi-mark, marquette, or little mark, a weight of gold or silver used in Great Britain and many other European countries.

[65] _Mrs. Josephine Butler_, so stating.

[66] A government license reads: “Chinese women for the use of Europeans only.”

[67] _Contagious Disease Acts._

[68] _The Emancipation of Women_, January, 1888.

[69] “The penal code provides for the punishment of a man who commits mischief by injuring an animal of the value of ten rupees or upwards, with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. If the animal be worth fifty rupees, the punishment may be for five years. If a man induces his neighbor’s dog, by bait or otherwise, to follow him with the intention of dishonestly taking the dog out of his neighbor’s possession, he may be punished with imprisonment for three years, or with fine, or with both. But while a man’s dog, his horse, his elephant are taken care of by legislation; while the very plants in his garden are protected; his young daughter, the light of his eyes and the joy of his home, may be ruined and her fair fame stolen with impunity, provided she has attained the age of ten years and is unmarried, and proof is wanting that she has resisted her seducer.”

[70] The New York Society for the “Prevention of Diseases.”

[71] Of Berlin, August Bebel says: “Now things are neither better nor worse in Berlin than in any other large town. It would be difficult to decide which most resembled ancient Babylon; orthodox Greek St. Petersburg, Catholic Rome, Christian Germanic Berlin, heathen Paris, puritan London, or lively Vienna.—_Woman in the Past, Present and Future._

[72] The latest attempt for licensing vice in the United States was made in New Orleans, 1892, in the form of an ordinance proposing to grant to Dr. Wm. Harnon the privilege of levying an inspection tax upon those known as “Public Women” of $1.50 a week for fifteen years.

The “Louisiana Review” said of it:

“A more revolting proposition than this has never come under our notice, and we are amazed that the health committee failed to detect its character, however artfully it may have been screened by the pretext that it was intended to lessen the harm of the social evil.”

The “New Delta,” in its issue of August 31, said: “The queer and ill-favored monopoly which the ordinance for the regulation of houses of bad repute sought to establish has not been successful on the first effort. It goes back to a committee. Let us hope that it will remain buried there forever, and decent people be saved the infliction of a public discussion of the miserable scheme. Such systems of ‘regulation’ would disgrace the devil, and the proposition for the city to share in the plunder of these poor wretches would shame a Piute village.”

The Woman’s Journal, September 19, said:

“It is well that this measure has failed on the first attempt; but to refer a matter to a committee is not necessarily to kill it, and its fate in the committee should be closely watched. The laws establishing the state regulation of vice in England were smuggled through Parliament about 1 o’clock in the morning, when half the members were absent or asleep; but it took seventeen years of painful and distasteful agitation to repeal them. Prevention of bad legislation is better than cure.”

This attempt was finally defeated through the energetic opposition and work of Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon.

[73] The reporter, while the committee was still in session, went to a procuress and ordered a _pretty girl_, 14 years of age, certified by a physician to be good, to be delivered to his order as “agent for _gentlemen of 60_.” The madame accepted the order, and in a short time produced the girl certified. The reporter investigated the child’s history, and ascertained that her father was dead and her mother was a poor working woman. The girl was dressed in an old black frock. Having completed the purchase of the girl, the reporter hastened to arrange for her delivery anywhere and to any person designated by the committee.

[74] A committee composed of Cardinal Manning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London and two laymen, examined the evidence respecting criminal vice in London, becoming satisfied that the statements made by the “Pall Mall Gazette” were substantially true.

[75] The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon preached a powerful sermon upon the patrician iniquity of London, comparing it to the worst sins of ancient nations, one sure, sooner or later, to bring destruction upon both individual and nation.

[76] When you see a girl on the street you can never say without inquiry whether she is one of the most-to-be-condemned or the most-to-be-pitied of her sex. Many of them find themselves where they are because of a too trusting disposition; others are as much the innocent victims of crime as if they had been stabbed or maimed by the dagger of the assassin.... These women constituted a large standing army, whose numbers no one can calculate. Gen. Booth.—_Darkest England_, 51-56.

[77] Children as they go to and from school are waited for and watched until the time has come for running them down.—_Report of the Secret Commission._

[78] It seemed a strange inverted world, that in which I lived those terrible weeks, the world of the streets and brothel. It was the same, and yet not the same as the world of business and the world of politics. I heard of much the same people in the house of ill-fame as those of whom you hear in caucuses, in law courts and on ’change; but all were judged by a different standard, and their relative importance was altogether changed. Mr. Stead.—“Pall Mall Gazette.”

[79] _Report of Secret Commission._

[80] An immense number of public women congregated at Nice during the time of its Historic Council, which settled the genuineness of the books of the Bible.

[81] So fast has this class of pecuniarily independent single women increased within the past two and a half decades, women who prefer a single life with its personal independence, to a married life with its legal dependence and restrictions, as to call from the “London Times” the designation of “Third Sex.”

[82] The statistics of prostitution show that the great proportion of those who have fallen into it have been impelled by the most extreme poverty, in many instances verging upon starvation.—_Hist. European Morals_, 2, 203.

[83] Belgium and Holland entered into an agreement a few years since for its suppression.

[84] When Hon. Henry Blair presented a petition, asking for the better protection of girls, he said: “Our civilization seems to have developed an almost unknown phase of crime in the annals of the race, and today the traffic in girls and young women in this country, especially in our large cities, has come to be more disgraceful and worse than ever was that in the girls of Circassia.”

This Christianity of ours has much to answer for.—_Woman’s Tribune._

[85] It was at one time proposed to arrest all women out alone in the city of Syracuse, N.Y., after 9 o’clock in the evening. Had the ordinance been enacted, a lady of mature years and position was prepared to test its legality.

[86] Eighteen women were arrested on Monday night in the fifteenth and twenty-ninth police precincts, and after being held in confinement over night, were taken before Justice Duffy at the Jefferson Market Police Court Tuesday morning.

“What were these women doing?” asked the justice.

“Nothing,” replied the officer.

“Then why did you arrest them?”

“We have to do it, sir. It is the order of the police superintendent when we find them loitering on the streets.”—New York “Sunday Sun,” June 28, 1885.

[87] Mr. Breen said the horrors of the camps into which these girls are inveigled cannot be adequately described. There is no escape for these poor creatures. In one case a girl escaped after being shot in the leg, and took refuge in a swamp. Dogs were started on her trail, and she was hunted down and taken back to her den. In another case a girl escaped while a dance was going on at the shanty into which she had been lured. After several days and nights of privation she made her way to an island near the shore in Lake Michigan, where a man named Stanley lived. But the dogs and human bloodhounds trailed her, Stanley was overcome, and the girl was taken back. The law now provides for imprisonment of only one year in case of conviction of any connection with this traffic, and it is proposed to amend it.—_Telegraphic Report._

[88] Tales of a horrible character reach us from Michigan and other northern lumber districts of the manner in which girls are enticed to these places on the promise of high wages, and then subjected to brutal outrages past description. Some three hundred of these dens are located. These girls are sold by the keepers, passing from one den to another, from one degree of hellish brutality to another (we beg pardon of all brutes), all escape guarded against by ferocious bloodhounds. The maximum of life is two months.—“Union Labor Journal.”

[89] Tony Harden used to keep dives in Norway and Quinnesic, and it is said of him that after paying a constable $12 to bring a girl back who had tried to escape, he beat her with a revolver until he was tired, and was about to turn a bull-dog loose at her, when a woodsman appeared and stopped him. The next spring Harden was elected justice of the peace.—“Woman’s Standard.”

[90] The Rev. Mr. Kerr, of the Protestant Church, Colon, recently discovered three young girls brought to the Isthmus for improper purposes. He took the children away, and with the assistance of others returned them to their parents in Jamaica.

[91] Quebec, April 11.—Wholesale trading in young and innocent girls for purposes of prostitution has come to the notice of the authorities. Disreputable houses in Chicago, New York, Boston and other cities in the United States have agents here, who ingratiate themselves with young women and induce them to go to the states, where they are drawn into a life of infamy. The trade has been carried on to an alarming extent, sometimes fifteen girls being shipped in a week. The prices paid to agents depend on the looks of the girls and vary from $20 to $200. It is stated that over fifty girls have been sent to one Chicago house within a year.—“Daily Press.”

[92] The startling revelations within the past few days as to the traffic at Ottawa in young girls of from 12 to 14, in which a number of prominent citizens as well as several leading politicians are implicated, have caused the greatest indignation. Tuesday night a meeting was held under the auspices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with a view to devising some means by which the great stain on the capital’s good name might be removed. It was decided that the matter must become the subject of special legislation at the next session of Parliament, before the guilty scoundrels can be punished. Opposition is expected from the members of Parliament who are implicated in the outrages.—“Daily Press.”

[93] “Topeka Leader.”

[94] In Troy, N.Y., in the fall of 1891, discovery was made of an organized plan to ravish little girls. It numbered in its ranks married men, members of the police force, and men well known in business and church circles. With this discovery came the statement from other cities that like offenders were common.—“The Daily Press.”

[95] Persistent efforts have been made by women to stop these great wrongs, but having no power in legislation, her prayers and petitions have met with but scant success.

[96] Married at Thirteen Years.—Maud Pearl Johnson, a thirteen-year-old girl of Fulton, who was married to Franklin Foster of that place on Monday, has been placed in the State Industrial School in Rochester under sentence by Police Justice Spencer of Fulton. Foster is a widower with three children. The minister at Fairdale who performed the ceremony is said to have been fined $3 for cruelty to children. The poor authorities arrested the young wife for vagrancy.

[97] Africa, Australia, India, Canada, the United States among the number.

[98] Who gave seventeen years of her life to work for the overthrow of government legislation of vice in England.

[99]—1. To treat all women with respect, and endeavor to protect them from wrong and degradation.

2. To endeavor to put down all indecent language and coarse jests.

3. To maintain the law of purity as equally binding upon men and women.

4. To endeavor to spread these principles among my companions, and try to help my younger brothers.

5. To use every possible means to fulfill the command: “Keep Thyself Pure.”

[100] The women claimed the right to baptize their own sex. But the bishops and presbyters did not care to be released from the pleasant duty of baptizing the female converts. Waite.—_Hist. of Christian Religion to A.D. 200_, p. 23.

The Constitution of the Church of Alexandria, which is thought to have been established about the year 200, required the applicant for baptism to be divested of clothing, and after the ordinance had been administered, to be anointed with oil.—_Ibid_, p. 384-5.

The converts were first exorcised of the evil spirits that were supposed to inhabit them; then, after undressing and being baptized, they were anointed with oil.—_Bunsen’s Christianity of Mankind_, Vol. VII, p. 386-393; _3d Vol. Analecta_.

Women were baptized quite naked in the presence of these men.—_Philosophical Dictionary._

Some learned men have enacted that in primitive churches the persons to be baptized, of whatever age or sex, should be quite naked. Pike.—_History of Crime in England._ See Joseph Vicecomes.—_De Ritibus Baptismi._ Varrius.—_Thesibus de Baptisme._

[101] Undisguised sensuality reached a point we can scarcely conceive. Women were sometimes brought naked upon the stage. By a curious association of ideas the theater was still intimately connected with religious observance. _Rationalism in Europe_, 2-288.

[102] Catharine, the first wife of Peter the Great, was received into the Greek Church by a rite nearly approaching the primitive customs of the Christian Church. New converts to that church are plunged three times naked in a river or into a large tub of cold water. Whatever is the conditions, age or sex of the convert, this indecent ceremony is never dispensed with. The effrontery of a pope (priests of the Greek Church are thus called), sets at defiance all the reasons which decency and modesty never cease to use against the absurdity and impudence of this shameful ceremony. Count Segur.—_Woman’s Condition and Influence in Society._