CHAPTER SIX

[1] He bought his bride of her parents according to the custom of antiquity, and she followed the coemption by purchasing with _three_ pieces of copper a just introduction to his treasury and household duties. Gibbon.—_Rome_, 4; 395.

[2] By the law of the _Twelve Tables_ woman possessed the right of repudiation in marriage. These tables were a compilation of still older laws or customs, a species of common law incorporated into statutes by Lachis of Athens, daughter of one Majestes; and were so wise and of such benefit to the people of Attica that the Romans received them as natural laws in which there was more of patriotism and purity than in all the volumes of Popinanus. H. S. Maine.—_Ancient Law._

[3] After the Punic triumphs the matrons of Rome aspired to the common benefits of a free and opulent republic.... They declined the solemnities of the old nuptials; defeated the annual prescription by an absence of three days, and without losing their name or independence subscribed the liberal and definite terms of a marriage contract. Of their private fortunes they commuted the use and secured the property; the estate of a wife could neither be alienated or mortgaged by a prodigal husband. Religious and civil rites were no longer essential, and between persons of similar rank, the apparent community of life was allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials.... When the Roman matrons became the equal and voluntary companions of their lords, their marriage like other partnerships might be dissolved. Gibbon.—_Rome_, 4; 347.

[4] Uses or Usucapion, was a form of civil marriage securing the wife more freedom than the form which held her “under his thumb” as his daughter. It was as old or even older than the Twelve Tables, and although for many centuries not considered quite as respectable a form of marriage as that in which the wife became the husband’s slave with divorce impossible, it eventually grew to be the customary form of Roman marriage. Maine.—_Early History of Ancient Institutions_, p. 517.

[5] It was with the state of conjugal relations thus produced that the growing Christianity of the Roman world waged a war ever increasing in fierceness, yet it remained to the last the basis of the Roman legal conception of marriage.—_Ibid._

[6] When the Chremes of Terence reproaches his wife for not obeying his orders and exposing their infant, he speaks like a father and master, and silences the scruples of a foolish woman. Milman.—_Note to Gibbons Rome._

[7] “‘Usus’ had the very important consequence that the woman so married remained in the eye of the law in the family of her father, and was under his guardianship and not that of her husband. A complete revolution had thus passed over the constitution of the family. This must have been the period when a jurisconsult of the empire defined marriage as a lifelong fellowship of all divine and human rights.”

[8] Reeves.—_Hist. Eng. Law_, p. 337.

[9] Maine says: No society which preserves any tincture of Christian Institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman laws.—_Ancient Law._

[10] Reeves says, while many great minds, as Lord Chief Justice Hale, Lord John Somers, Henry Spellman, Dr. Brady and Sir Martin Wright think feudalism came in with the conqueror, others, as Coke, Seldon, Bacon and Sir Roger Owen are of opinion that tenures were common among the Saxons. Blackstone, Dalrymple and Sullivan endeavor to compromise the dispute by admitting an imperfect system of feuds to have been instituted before the conquest.—_History of English Law_, Vol. I., p. 18-19.

[11] A certain bishop, wishing a person to take charge of his castle during his absence, the latter asked how he should support himself. For answer _the bishop_ pointed to a procession of tradesmen with their goods then crossing the valley at their feet.

[12] Wives were bought in England from the fifth to the eleventh century. Herbert Spencer.—_Descriptive Sociology of England._

[13] There was another law even more odious than Marquette; the father’s right to the price of mundium, in other words, the price of his daughter. Legouve.—_Hist. Morales des Femmes_, p. 104.

[14] Murder under the name of war, the ruin of women under the name of gallantry, were the chief occupations of the nobility. Pike.—_Hist. of Crime in England._ The chief qualification for success at courts was the power of making and appreciating mirth. The infidelities of women were commonly the narrator’s theme, and an exhortation to avoid matrimony was the most common form of advice given by a man to his friend. War and intrigue were regarded as the principal amusements of life; the acquisition of wealth the only object worth serious consideration. A consequence of this creed was that the husband frequently set a price upon his wife’s virtue, and made a profit out of his own dishonor. Fathers were ready to sell their daughters.—_Ibid._

[15] Both married and single found their worst foes in their nearest friends. The traffic in women was none the less real in Christian England than it is now in the slave marts of Stamboul or Constantinople.—_Ibid._ One of the most recent illustrations of the general regard in which woman is held throughout Christendom, is the experience of the young California heiress, Florence Blythe, who although but fifteen years old, was in constant receipt of proposals of marriage both at home and from abroad. Her attorney, General Hunt, said: “I do not think there is a woman living who has had the number of written proposals that Florence has received, but in all the letters woman is regarded as a chattel, a thing to be bought and sold. The constant receipt of letters of this character, and the equally constant attempt of adventurers to gain a personal interview with the child, at last became unendurable, and to escape such insulting persecution, Florence suddenly married a young man of her acquaintance living near her.” These letters, among them, from sixty titled Europeans, lords, counts, dukes, barons, viscounts, marquises and even one prince, confirm the statement of August Bebel, that marriage sales of women are still as common as in the middle ages, and are expected in most Christian countries.

[16] A husband upon his return from the Crusades, finding his wife had been untrue, imprisoned her in a room so small she could neither stand erect nor lie at full length; her only window looking out upon the dead body of her lover swinging in chains.

[17] The Shoshone Indian who hires his wife out as a harlot, inflicts capital punishment on her if she goes with another without his knowledge. Bancroft.—_Native Races_, I; 436.

[18] Therefore a single woman for whom no bid was offered, an “old maid” was looked upon with contempt as being of no value in the eyes of men.

[19] _Hist. of Crime in England_, Vol. I, p. 90.

[20] By the laws of the king of Wessex, who lived at the end of the VIII century, the purchase of wives is deliberately sanctioned; in the preface it is stated that the compilation was drawn up with the assistance of the Bishop of Winchester and a large assemblage of God’s servants.—_Ibid._

[21] Nothing, says Pike, was considered but the market value of the woman, and the adulterer was compelled to expend the equivalent of her original price on the purchase of a new bride, whom he formally delivered to the injured husband. Nor were these laws merely secular, they were enacted and enforced by all the dread power of the church.—_Ibid._

[22] In the 14th century either the female character was utterly dissolute, or the tyranny of husbands utterly reckless, when we find that it was no uncommon circumstance that women were strangled by masked assassins, or walking by the river side were plunged into it. This drowning of women gave rise to a popular proverb: “It is nothing, only a woman being drowned.” And this condition constituted the domestic life of England from the 12th century to the first civil war, when the taste of men for bloodshed found wider scope, and from the murder of women they advanced to the practice of cutting one another’s throats. Disraeli.—_Amenities of Literature_, Vol. I., p. 95.

[23] “And they were so covetous that for a little silver they sellen ’ein daughters, ’ein sisters and ’ein own wives, to putten ’ein to lechery.”

[24] The Church from the earliest period furnished its full portion to the codes of our simple forefathers, that of the first Christian king being that for the property of God and the Church (if stolen) twelvefold compensation was to be made. Thorpe.—_Ancient Laws and Institutions of England._

[25] _Journal of Jurisprudence_, Vol. XVI., Edinburg, 1872.

[26] Until the maiden was wedded she was kept strictly under control, and the kind of discipline which was enforced is well illustrated by a letter written late in the reign of Henry VI. The writer was the widow of a landholder, and she was corresponding with the brother of the young lady whose case she describes and whom she is anxious to serve by finding a husband. This young lady was under the care of her mother and the following was her condition: She might not speak with any man, not even her mother’s servants; and she had since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week, or twice, and sometimes thrice in a day, and her hand was broken in two or three places. Pike.—_History of Crime in England._

[27] Britton.—_Introduction_, p. 39. Glanville.—_De Legibius Anglica_, p. 158.

[28] Doubtless in all ages marriages were by far oftener determined by pecuniary considerations than by love or affection, but proofs are wanting to show that marriage was formerly made an object of speculation and exchange in the open market with anything like the same effrontery as today. In our time among the propertied classes—the poor have no need of it—marriage barter is frequently carried on with a shamelessness which makes the phrases about the sacredness of marriage, that some people never tire of repeating, the emptiest mockery. August Bebel.—_Woman in the Past, Present and Future._

[29] To make women the special objects of this torture, to teach them hardness of heart in the office of executioners, was refinement of atrocity.... It was for slaves and women that the greatest atrocities were reserved.—_Hist. of Crime in England._

[30] Women in England had burned women to death in the 10th century; they had been set on the stool of filth to be mocked as brewers of bad ale in the 11th; on the stool of filth they had been jeered as common scolds from time immemorial; they were legally beaten by their husbands down to a comparatively recent period. In the 14th century they were such as circumstances had made them; strong of muscle but hard of heart, more fit to be mothers of brigands than to rear gentle daughters or honest sons.—_Ibid._

[31] The elder Disraeli says: “Warton, too, has observed that the style of friendship between males in the reign of Elizabeth would not be tolerated at the present day.” Disraeli himself declares that “a male friend, whose life and fortunes were consecrated to another male, who looks upon him with adoration and talks of him with excessive tenderness, appears to us nothing less than a chimerical and monstrous lover.”—_Amenities of Literature_, Vol. II., p. 105.

[32] Poisoning or otherwise murdering husbands was a crime visited with peculiar severity in almost all codes. Lea.—_Superstition and Force._

[33] Blackstone says it was to be no thicker than a man’s thumb, thus an instrument of ever varying size. According to palmistry the thumb of a self-willed or obstinate man, a cruel man, or of a murderer, is very large at the upper portion or ball.

[34] Petit treason may happen in three ways: By a servant killing his master, a wife her husband, or an ecclesiastical person (either secular or regular) his superior, to whom he owes faith and obedience. The punishment of petit treason in a man is to be drawn and hanged, and in a woman to be drawn and burnt.—_Commentaries_, Vol. IV., p. 203-4.

[35] But in treason of every kind the punishment of women is the same and different from men. For as the decency due to the sex forbids the exposing and publicly mangling their bodies, their sentence is to be drawn (dragged) to the gallows and there be burnt alive.—_Ibid_, IV., p. 92.

[36] The daily press, in its minute record of events, all unwittingly furnishes many a little item, whose primal reason only the student of history can read. The Syracuse, N.Y., “Daily Standard,” of February 22, 1884, published from its exchanges the following incident: “An eccentric old man in New Hampshire surprised his neighbors and friends the other day by shouldering his gun and starting for the woods on the morning of his wife’s funeral. On being urged to come back, he refused saying: “She warn’t no blood relation of mine.”

[37] But now by the statute 30, George 3 c. 48, women convicted in all cases of treason shall receive judgment to be drawn to the place of execution, and there to be hanged by the neck till dead. Before this humane statute women were sentenced to be burnt alive for every species of treason.—_Commentaries_, p. 92.

[38] See decision _New York Court of Appeals_, January, 1892.

[39] ST. PETERSBURG, September 22—In April last Mrs. Aina Sainio, wife of a professor in the State College at Travasteheuse, Finland, was found guilty of poisoning her husband, and in accordance with the mediaeval law, which is still in force there, she was sentenced to be beheaded, and her body to be affixed to a beacon and burned. It was charged that Mrs. Sainio had been unfaithful to her husband, carrying on a liaison with one of the students at the college. She strenuously denied this, and said her motive in killing her husband was to get the insurance of $2,500 on his life as she was deeply in debt. The case was carried to the Court of Appeals and today a decision was handed down affirming the judgment of the trial court and adding to the punishment. It transpired during the trial that Mrs. Sainio had forged her husband’s name to checks for small sums some time before his death, and for this offense the Court of Appeals ordered that her right hand be cut off. Then she will be decapitated, her body fastened to a stake covered with inflammable material and set on fire.

[40] Reported in the _London Telegraph_.

[41] _Telegraphic Report_ from Providence, R.I., September 24, 1892.

[42] Mrs. Judge Seney’s trouble.—A deserted wife suing the woman who enticed her husband away from her. TIFFIN, O., February 14—Judge Dodge gave his decision yesterday in the novel case of the former Mrs. George E. Seney against the present Mrs. George E. Seney. Judge Seney is one of the well known lawyers of Ohio, and author of a “Civil Code” that bears his name. He married his first wife, Mrs. Anna Seney, in 1858, and for fourteen years they lived happily together. At about that time Mrs. Seney and Miss Walker became very intimate friends, and continued to be so until, as is alleged, Mrs. Seney ascertained that Miss Walker was undermining the affections of her husband. A separation between Mr. and Mrs. Seney soon followed, and subsequently the Judge married Miss Walker. Mrs. Seney, therefore, instituted a suit against her successor, claiming damages to the amount of $10,000 for the seduction of her husband.—_New York Sun._

[43] James Howard, thirty-five years old, was taken from jail at Texarkana, Ark., on Wednesday night by a mob and lynched. He was under arrest for horrible cruelty to his fourteen-year-old wife. The woman says that he frequently tied her feet together while she was in a state of nudity, and hanging her up by the feet beat her unmercifully and threatened to kill her if she told anyone of his cruelties. On the first of November, Howard took a common branding iron, used to brand live stock, and heating it red hot branded a large letter “H” on his wife’s person in two places while she was tied to a bed.

[44] “Pall Mall Gazette,” 1888.

[45] “Westminster Review,” September, 1887.

[46] Cato, the Roman (pagan), censor three centuries before the Christian era, said: “They who beat their wives or children lay sacrilegious hands on the most sacred things in the world. For myself, I prefer the character of a good husband to that of a great senator.”

[47] The bill failed of passing upon the ground that the lash belonged to the dark ages, degrading a man by its infliction.

[48] An English lady, _Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucus_, in writing a description of this implement said: “This country has even now but little to boast in her laws regarding woman, and your country is burdened with similar evil laws; the Franchise is most important.”

[49] The Museum at Reading, England, contains among its curiosities a bridle formerly used to stop the mouths of scolding women in that town.

[50] Sometimes called Timbrel, or Gum Stole.

[51] “It would seem that almost every English town of any importance had its ducking-stool for scolds. In 1741, old Rugby paid 2s 4d for a chair for the ducking stool. The parish of Southam, in Warwickshire, got a beautiful stool built in 1718 at an expense of £2 11s 4d. Ancient Coventry had two stools.”

The most noteworthy of all the instruments designed for the correction of Eve’s offending daughters was the ducking-stool, known as the tumbrel and the trebuchet. A post, across which was a transverse beam turning on a swivel and with a chair at one end, was set up on the edge of a pond. Into the chair the woman was chained, turned toward the water—a muddy or filthy pond was usually chosen for this purpose when available—and ducked half a dozen times; or, if the water inflamed her instead of acting as a damper, she was let down times innumerable, until she was exhausted and well nigh drowned.

From the frequency with which we find it mentioned in old local and county histories, in church wardens’ and chamberlains’ accounts, and by the poets, we shall probably not be wrong in concluding that at one time this institution was kept up all over the country.—“London Graphic.”

[52] John Dillon.—_Colonial Legislation of America._

[53] _Ibid._

[54] JERSEY CITY, N.J., July 23, 1887.—Mrs. Mary Brody, convicted a few days ago of being a common scold, was today sentenced to pay a fine of $25 and costs.

Only the other day a woman in this city, under some ancient unrepealed law of this state, was arrested and brought before a magistrate on the charge of being a common scold. A too free use of the tongue was reckoned a public offense in all the American colonies, and in England the lawful punishment of common scolds was continued until a recent day. It was for these that the “ducking-stool” was invented, which usually consists of a heavy chair fastened to the end of a large piece of timber, which was hung by the middle to a post on the river side. The offender was tied into the chair, and then soused into the water until it was judged that her shrewishness had departed from her. Sometimes she was dipped so thoroughly that her breath departed for good, as happened to a certain elderly lady at Ratcliffe Highway. The ducking-stool was constantly hanging in its place, and on the back of it were engraved devils laying hold of scolds, etc.—“St. Louis Republican.”

[55] If it is a crime to buy and sell wives, let the men who do such things be punished; if there is no crime in the transaction, why should the wife who is sold be punished. Unfortunately this is not a solitary instance of law made or administered to punish women in order to teach men.—_English Women’s Suffrage Journal._

Before Mr. Justice Denman, at the Liverpool Assizes, Betsey Wardle was charged with marrying George Chisnal at Eccleston, bigamously, her former husband being alive. It was stated by the woman that, as her first husband had sold her for a quart of beer, she thought she was at liberty to marry again.

George Chisnal, the second husband, apparently just out of his teens was called.

His Lordship—“How did you come to marry this woman?”

Witness [in the Lancashire vernacular]—“Hoo did a what?” [Laughter.]

Question repeated—“A bowt her.” [Laughter.]

His Lordship—“You are not fool enough to suppose you can buy another man’s wife?” Oi? [Laughter.]

His Lordship—“How much did you give for her?” Six pence. [Great laughter.]

His Lordship asked him how long he had lived with the prisoner.

Witness—“Going on for three years.”

His Lordship—“Do you want to take her back again?”

“Awl keep her if you loike.” [Laughter.]

His Lordship (addressing the prisoner)—It is absolutely necessary that I should pass some punishment upon you in order that people may understand that men have no more right to sell their wives than they have to sell other people’s wives, or to sell other people’s horses or cows, or anything of the kind. You cannot make that a legal transaction. So many of you seem to be ignorant of that, that it is necessary to give you some punishment in order that you may understand it. It is not necessary it should be long, but you must be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for one week.—“News of the World,” 1883.

A peculiar case came up in the mayor’s office at Vincennes, Ind., in 1887. A man named Bonn sold his wife to another man named Burch for $300, and held Burch’s note therefor. The sale was a reality, but the note was never paid, hence the difficulty.

“We know a man in the Black Hills—a man who is well-to-do and respected—the foundation of whose fortune was $4,000, the sum for which he sold his wife to a neighbor. The sale was purely a matter of business all around, and the parties to it were highly satisfied.” 1889.—“_The Times_,” Bismarck, N.D.

[56] In “The Doncaster Gazette” of March 25, 1803, a sale is thus described: “A fellow sold his wife, as a cow, in Sheffield market place a few days ago. The lady was put into the hands of a butcher, who held her by a halter fastened around her waist. ‘What do you ask for your cow?’ said a bystander. ‘A guinea’ replied the husband. ‘Done,’ cried the other, and immediately led away his bargain. We understand that the purchaser and his ‘cow’ live very happily together.” Ashton.—_The Progress of Women._

[57] “Morning Herald,” March 11, 1802.—On the 11th of last month a person sold, at the market cross, in Chapel en la Frith, a wife, a child, and as much furniture as would set up a beggar, for eleven shillings.

“Morning Herald,” April 16, 1802.—A butcher sold his wife by auction at the last market day at Hereford. The lot brought £1 4s. and a bowl of punch.

“Annual Register,” February 14, 1806.—A man named John Garsthorpe exposed his wife for sale in the market at Hall about 1 o’clock, but owing to the crowd which such an extraordinary occurrence had brought together, he was obliged to defer the sale, and take her away, about 4 o’clock. However, he again brought her out, and she was sold for 20 guineas, and delivered with a halter, to a person named Houseman, who had lodged with them for four or five years.

“Morning Post,” October 10, 1808.—One of those disgraceful scenes which have of late become too common took place on Friday se’nnight at Knaresborough. Owing to some jealousy, or other family difference, a man brought his wife, equipped in the usual style, and sold her at the market cross for 6d and a quid of tobacco.—_Ibid._

[58] Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man’s rights; society exists for men only; for women, merely in so far as they are represented by some man, are in the _mundt_, or keeping of some man. Herbert Spencer.—_Descriptive Sociology, England._

[59] A committee appointed by the National Woman Suffrage Association, at that time in convention assembled in Washington, waited upon President Cleveland with the memorial.

[60] Mediaeval Christian husbands imprisoned erring wives in cages so small they could neither stand upright nor lie down at full length. Mediaeval Christian priests boiled living infants in osier baskets in presence of helpless heretical mothers. In mediaeval times the public scourging of women was one of the amusements of the carnival; even as late as the eighteenth century English gentlemen, according to _Herbert Spencer_, made up parties of pleasure to see women whipped at Bridewell.

[61] Seduction was connived at that the guardian might secure the estate of the ward.—_Ibid._

[62] The Salic law had not preference to one sex over the other—purely economical law which gave houses and lands to males who should dwell there, and consequently to whom it would be of most service.—_Spirit of the Laws._

[63] In order to give color to the usurpation (for it was nothing better), the lawyers cited an obscure article from the code of the barbarous Salians, which, as they pretended had always been the acknowledged law of the French monarchy.... Since that time the Salic law, as it is called, has been regarded as an essential constitutional principle in France.—_Student’s History of France_, p. 19.

[64] Montesquieu.—_Spirit of the Laws._

[65] Women in England were for more than a thousand years legislated for as slaves. Crimes committed by men which could be atoned for by a fine, were by women punished with burning alive. The period is not very distant when she was distinctly legislated for as a servant and but on a level with chattel slaves.—_Hist. Crime in England._

[66] _American Law_, 1829.

[67] Through the influence of Governor M. Nutt, who instituted many reforms.

[68] There was no distinction between offenses against the church on one hand, and offenses against the state or individual on the other. Cases of theft and sorcery, like those of witchcraft, could be tried in the church. From the position of the clergy as law-givers, it follows not only that the secular laws had the sanction of religion, but that religious observance were enforced by the secular arm.

[69] From 499 to 1066. Herbert Spencer.—_Descriptive Sociology._

[70] To women were still applied those punishments, which had been instituted by the men whose practice it was to buy their wives and sell their daughters. Pike.—_Hist. Crime in England._

[71] Bracton.—_De Legibus Anglice I_, 479.

[72] “The reformation altered, but did not better the condition of woman. Socially it rescued her from the priest to make her the chattel of the husband, and doctrinally it expunged her altogether. Martin Luther declared that the two sacred books, which especially point to woman as the agent of man’s final redemption—the books of Esther and Revelations—that in ‘so far as I esteem them, it would be no loss if they were thrown into the river’.”

[73] “The forefathers of _Benjamin Franklin_ used a Bible kept fastened under the seat of a four-legged stool, the leaves held in place by pack-threads. When the family assembled to hear it read, one of the number was posted as sentinel some distance from the house to give warning of any stranger’s approach, in which case the stool was hurriedly replaced upon its legs, and some one seated upon it for more effectual concealment of the book.”

[74] Herbert Spencer.—_Descriptive Sociology, England._

[75] The _English Women’s Suffrage Journal_, November, 1886, reported: “Mrs. —— rose to move a resolution. After reading a memorial, she said: ’Now, when I was asked to add a few words of support to the memorial I have just read, my first feeling was that I was very far from the right person to do so, inasmuch as being a married woman—and therefore disqualified—and rightly disqualified,” etc.

[76] The coverture of a woman disables her from making contracts to the prejudice of herself or her husband without his allowance or confirmation.

[77] I have arrived at conclusions which I keep to myself as yet, and only utter as Greek _phogagta sunetotsi_, the principle of which is, that there will never be a good world for women 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 Europe have been brought up under the shadows of the Canon Law, and have accepted it with their 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. Canon Charles Kingsley.—_Letter to John Stuart Mill_, June 17, 1849, in _Life and Letters_.

[78] Dowers were first introduced into England by the Danish king, Cnut or Canute, and into Denmark by Swein, father of Canute, who bestowed it upon Danish ladies in grateful acknowledgment of their having parted with their jewels to ransom him from the Vandals. For account of Dowers, see _History of Dowers_; Grote.—_History of Greece 2_, 112-13; Alexander.—_History of Women_; Lord Kames.—_Sketch of the history of Man_; _Histoire des Morales des Femmes_. In Denmark, King Sweinn Forkbeard was the first to give woman a share in her parents’ property. Saxo Grammaticus says, The king was taken prisoner by the Vinds who demanded so large a sum of money for his ransom, the men of Denmark would not pay it, so their king remained a prisoner. The women of Denmark sold their ornaments and ransomed him. From gratitude the king decreed that afterwards daughters should inherit one-third of their father’s property. _Journal of Jurisprudence._ One especial right belonged to wives among the Northmen; this was the custody of her husband’s keys, and if he refused them the wife could compel him by law to give her their possession. These were the keys of the store-room, chest, and cupboard.

[79] The law of dower was less favorable to the wife in the 13th century than it became later.

[80] See _Reeves_ pp. 156-6.

[81] Sheldon Amos.—_Science of Law._

[82] _History of Women_, 1779.

[83] Higgins says the word widow comes from Vidya, to know.

[84] _Ancient Laws of Ireland, Sanchus Mor._ pp. 347-51.

[85] At a time when the English law of husband and wife, which now for three centuries, has been substituted for the Irish law in this country, has been condemned by a committee of the House of Commons, as unjust towards the wife, and when the most advanced of modern thinkers are trying to devise some plan by which wives may be placed in a position more nearly approaching to equality with the husband, it is interesting to discover in the much despised laws of the ancient Irish, the recognition of the principle on which efforts are being made to base our legislation on this subject. Preface to _Sanchus Mor._ Vol. 2.

[86] Vol. 3, p. 35.—_Ibid._

[87] _Rambles and Studies in Old South Wales._—Wirt Sikes.

[88] The three peculiars of a women, are her cowyll, her gowyn, and her sarand; the reason these three are called three peculiars, is because they are the three properties of a woman and cannot be taken from her for any cause; her cowyll is what she receives for her maidenhood; her sarand is for every beating given her by her husband, except for three things; and those three for which she may be beaten are, for giving anything she ought not to give; for being detected with another man in a covert; and for wishing drivel on her husband’s beard; and if for being found with another man he chastises her, he is not to have any satisfaction beside that, for there ought not to be both satisfaction and vengeance for the same crime; her gowyn is, if she detect her husband with another woman, let him pay her six score pence for the first offense, for the second, one pound; if she detect him a third time she can separate from him without leaving anything that belongs to her. _Aneurin Owen_, Professor of Welsh Law.

[89] The law enacts that she ought not to suffer loss on account of the man, since she received no benefit from him, and therefore he is to rear the child. _Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales._

[90] The Welsh laws of Howell the Good were enacted by four laics and two clerks who were summoned lest the laws should ordain anything contrary to scripture. _Ibid._

[91] A woman cannot be admitted as surety or as a witness concerning man. _Ibid._

[92] _Civil Code_, Art 340.

[93] _The Woman Question in Europe._—T. Stanton. This law of France differs greatly from the old Welsh pre-christian law, which threw the support of an illegitimate child upon the father. Notwithstanding the responsibility thus thrown upon her, a French proverb declares that “the most reasonable woman never attains the sense of a boy of fourteen.”

[94] It was no mere accident that the French language only possessed one word, _l’homme_, for man, and human being. French law only recognizes man as a human being.—_August Bebel._

[95] Legouve—_History of Morals of Women._

[96] The baby was born in the next house, and of course I was interested, how can one not be interested when one of these little angels becomes imprisoned in the earth form and begins a career that makes one tremble to think of? Meeting the father a few hours later I ask the customary question. “Another no account girl to be supported,” he said gloomily, and passed on.—_Woman’s World_. A father of experience spoke differently: “My gals never forget me. They married and went away to their own homes: and though they were none of them well-to-do, yet not one of them ever saw the time she wouldn’t steal a dollar from her husband to give to father or mother; but it isn’t so with the boys. They never knew they owed me anything; they never put their hands in their pockets for me; they never laid awake o’ nights thinking how to scrimp household expenses to get me or mother a present like the gals did. And yet when I was araisin’ ’em I thought one boy was worth a dozen gals.”

[97] See _Scandinavian Jurisprudence_.

[98] A story is told by an American traveller, of a party met upon the cars, the mother a delicate little personage, the father stout and strong. Upon leaving the train he walked off incommoded by a single traveling impedimenta, while the wife was almost hidden under the pack she was carrying. With indignation the American asked, “why do you not let the man take some of these things?” ‘What! and he the father of a family?’ was the surprised answer.

[99] It is unnecessary to let the whole many-colored map of German common law pass in review; a few specimens will suffice. According to German common law woman is everywhere in the position of a minor with regard to man; her husband is her lord and master, to whom she owes obedience in marriage. If she be disobedient, Prussian law allows a husband of “low estate” to inflict moderate bodily chastisement. As no provision is made for the number or severity of the blows, the amount of such chastisement is left to the sovereign discretion of the man. In the communal law of Hamburg the regulation runs as follows: “The moderate chastisement of a wife by her husband is just and permissible.” Similar enactments exist in many parts of Germany. The Prussian common law further decrees that the husband can determine the length of time during which a woman must suckle her child. All decisions with regard to the children rest with the father. When he dies the wife is everywhere under the obligation of accepting a guardian for the children; she is decided to be under age, and incapable of conducting the education of children alone, even when their means of support are derived entirely from her property or her labor. Her fortune is managed by her husband, and in cases of bankruptcy is regarded in most states as his and disposed of accordingly, unless a special contract has been made before marriage. When landed property is entailed on the eldest child, a daughter has no rights, as long as husband or brothers are alive; she cannot succeed unless she has no brothers or has lost them by death. She cannot exercise the political rights which are as a rule connected with landed property, unless in some exceptional cases, as for instance in Saxony, where communal regulations in the country allow her to vote, but deny her the right of being elected. But even this right is transferred to her husband if she marry. In most states she is not free to conclude agreements without the consent of her husband, unless she be engaged in business on her own account, which recent legislation permits her to do. She is excluded from every kind of public activity. The Prussian law concerning societies, forbids school-boys and apprentices under eighteen, and women to take part in political associations and public meetings. Until within the last few years women were forbidden by various German codes to attend the public law courts as listeners. If a woman becomes pregnant of an illegitimate child she has no claim on support if she accepted any present from the father at the time of their intimacy. If a woman is divorced from her husband, she continues to bear his name in eternal memory of him, unless she happens to marry again.

August Bebel.—_Woman in the Past, Present and Future._

[100] Who, indeed, would not have been received by the queen.

[101] A German girl continues to be a maid-of-all-work until circumstances elevate her to a higher position. She becomes a mother, and this opens a fresh career to her as an _amme_ or wet nurse. Her lines thenceforward fall in pleasant places. An _amme_ is a person of consideration. No disgrace or loss of character is attached to the irregularity of conduct which often is the origin of her promotion to a higher sphere. Her wages are quadrupled; her fare by comparison is sumptuous; she can never be scolded; she is called upon to fulfill but one duty. The occupation is so much more remunerative than ordinary service, that one can scarcely be surprised if plenty of women are found ready and willing to follow the trade. With them the child is only a means to an end. Marriage among the lower orders in Germany is cumbered about with so many restrictions and conditions, that it has come to be looked upon as almost an impossibility.

[102] When _Miss Aarta Hansteen_, a Norwegian lady announced her purpose of lecturing on woman’s natural equality with man, she met little or no support, the church strenuously opposing on ground of woman’s original curse.

[103] Translated into English under title of “Nora,” by _Miss Frances Lord_.

[104] So profound was its effect that visiting invitations were coupled with the request not to speak of the work.

[105] _Marian Brown Shipley_, an American lady, long a resident of Sweden and thoroughly conversant with its literature and tone of thought, said of it, “A more glorious thing has not been done in Sweden for centuries, Strindberg has defied church and state, striking both to their foundations with his merciless satire, and rallied the Swedish people at a single stroke.”

[106] Bjornsen said, “The confiscating of August Strindberg’s book _Giftas_, is the greatest literary scandal in the North in my time. It is worse than when one wished to put me in the house of correction on account of the King; or thrust out Ibsen from the society of honorable people for gjengungerd (Ghosts).”

[107] March 30, 1882.

[108] _Russian Revolt._

[109] A Russian writer of the 17th century said: “As Eve did wrong, so the whole race of women become sinful and the cause of evil.”

[110] She was spoken of as a “Vanity itself,” “A storm in the home,” “A flood that swells everything,” “A serpent nourished in the bosom,” “A spear penetrating the heart,” “A constantly flying arrow.”

[111] _Rural Life in Russia.—The Nineteenth Century._

[112] See Chap. 4. p. 161.

[113] I myself am the happy possessor of a little rude wooden bas-relief, framed and glazed, of two saints, whose names I have ungratefully forgotten, to whom if you pray as you go out to commit a crime, however heinous, you take your pardon with you.—_Rural Life in Russia._

[114] See Chap. 4. p. 182.

[115] Reported by _Mrs. Livermore_.

[116] _Leavenworth Standard_, Dec. 21, 1886.

[117] Under common law a woman is classified with lunatics, idiots, infants and minors.