Chapter 64

187Plutarch,Conjugalia præcepta, 33.

188Isaeus,Oratio de Aristarchi hereditate, 10, p. 259. Döllinger,op. cit.ii. 234.

189Glasson,Le mariage civil et le divorce, p. 152sq.Meier and Schömann,Der attische Process, p. 512.

In Rome, in ancient times, the power which the father possessed over his daughter was generally, if not always,190by marriage transferred to the husband.191When marrying a woman passed inmanum viri, as a wife she wasfiliæ loco, that is, in law she was her husband’s daughter.192And since the Roman house-father originally had thejus vitæ necisqueover his children, the husband naturally had the same power over his wife. But from her being destitute of all legal rights we must not conclude that she wastreated with indignity. On the contrary, she generally had a respected and influential position in the family;193and though the husband could repudiate her at will, it was said that for five hundred and twenty yearsa condita urbethere was no such thing as a divorce in Rome.194As Mr. Bryce points out, we cannot doubt that the wide power which the law gave to the husband “was in point of fact restrained within narrow limits, not only by affection, but also by the vigilant public opinion of a comparatively small community.”195Gradually, however, marriage withmanusfell into disuse, and was, under the Empire, generally superseded by marriage withoutmanus, a form of wedlock which conferred on the husband hardly any authority at all over his wife. Instead of passing into his power, she remained in the power of her father; and since the tendency of the later law, as we have seen, was to reduce the oldpatria potestasto a nullity, she became practically independent.196

190Rossbach,Römische Ehe, p. 64. Maine,Ancient Law, p. 155.

191Or, properly speaking, to the husband’s father, if he was still alive (Rossbach,op. cit.p. 11).

192Leist,Alt-arische Juris Civile, i. 175. Maine,op. cit.p. 155.

193Rossbach,op. cit.pp. 36, 117.

194Valerius Maximus, ii. 1 (De matrimoniorum ritu), Aulus Gellius,Noctes Atticæ, iv. 3. 1.

195Bryce,Studies in History and Jurisprudence, ii. 389.

196Rossbach,op. cit.pp. 30, 42. Maine,op. cit.p. 155sq.Friedlaender,Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 252sqq.

This remarkable liberty granted to married women, however, was only a passing incident in the history of the family in Europe. From the very first Christianity tended to narrow it. Already the latest Roman law, so far as it is touched by the Constitutions of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of a reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults, who assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their code of equity.197And this tendency was in a formidable degree supported by Teutonic custom and law. Among the Teutons a husband’s authority over his wife was the same as a father’s over his unmarried daughter.198This power, which under certain circumstances gave the husband a right to kill, sell, or repudiate his wife,199undoubtedlycontained much more than the Church could approve of, and so far she has helped to ameliorate the condition of married women in Teutonic countries. But at the same time the Church is largely responsible for those heavy disabilities with regard to personal liberty, as well as with regard to property, from which they have suffered up to recent times. The systems, says Sir Henry Maine, “which are least indulgent to married women are invariably those which have followed the Canon Law exclusively, or those which, from the lateness of their contact with European civilisation, have never had their archaisms weeded out.”200

197Maine,op. cit.pp. 156, 154.

198Brunner,Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, i. 75. Stemann,Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.’s Lov, p. 323.

199Grimm,Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 450sq.Brunner,op. cit.i. 75. Schröder,Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, p. 303.

200Maine,op. cit.p. 159.

Christianity enjoins a husband to love his wife as his own body,201to do honour unto her as unto the weaker vessel.202However, “man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head.”203The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church; hence, “as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”204It is difficult to exaggerate the influence exercised by a doctrine, so agreeable to the selfishness of men, and so readily lending itself to be used as a sacred weapon against almost any attempt to extend the rights of married women, as was this dictum of St. Paul’s. In an essay on the position of women among the early Christians Principal Donaldson writes, “In the first three centuries I have not been able to see that Christianity had any favourable effect on the position of women, but, on the contrary, that it tended to lower their character and contract the range of their activity.”205And in more modern times Christian orthodoxy has constantly been opposed to the doctrine which once sprang up in paganRome and is nowadays supported by a steadily growing number of enlightened men and women, that marriage should be a contract on the footing of perfect equality between husband and wife.

201Ephesians, v. 28.

2021 Peter, iii. 7.

2031 Corinthians, xi. 8sqq.Cf.Timothy, ii. 11sqq.

204Ephesians, v. 23sq.

205Donaldson, ‘Position of Women among the Early Christians,’ inContemporary Review, lvi. 433.

The position of married women among the various peoples on earth depends on such a variety of circumstances that it would be impossible to enumerate them all. We shall here consider only the most important.

A few words must first be said about the hypothesis that the socialstatusof women is connected with the system of tracing descent. Dr. Steinmetz has tried to show that the husband’s authority over his wife is, broadly speaking, greater among those peoples who reckon kinship through the father than among those who reckon kinship through the mother only.206The cases examined by Dr. Steinmetz, however, are too few to allow of any general conclusions, and the statements concerning the husband’s rights are commonly so indefinite and so incomplete that I think the evidence would be difficult to produce, even if the investigation were based on a larger number of facts. Besides, the paternal and maternal systems of descent are often so interwoven with each other among one and the same people, that it may equally well be referred to the one class as to the other207—a difficulty which Dr. Steinmetz must surely have felt in his attempt to treat the subject statistically. There is, moreover, the weak point of the statistical method generally, the question of selecting ethnographical units, which I have discussed in another place.208How, for instance, are we to deal with the various tribes of Australia? They can certainly not, all in a lump, be counted as one single unit; among some of them the maternal system prevails, among others the paternal. But then, shall we reckon each tribe as oneunit by itself, or, if not, into how many groups shall we divide them? When I compare with each other peoples of the same race, at the same stage of culture, living in the same neighbourhood, under similar conditions of life, but differing from one another in their method of reckoning kinship, I do not find that the prevalence of the one or the other line of descent conspicuously affects the husband’s authority. Nothing of the kind has been noticed in Australia, nor, so far as I know, in India, where the paternal system among many of the aboriginal tribes is combined with great, or even extraordinary, rights on the part of the wife. Among the West African Negroes the position of women is, to all appearance, no less honourable in tribes like the Ibos, among whom inheritance runs through males, than in tribes which admit inheritance through females only;209and of the Fulah, among whom succession goes from father to son,210Mr. Winwood Reade observes that their women are “the most tyrannical wives in Africa,” knowing “how to make their husbands kneel before their charms, and how to place their little feet upon them.”211But we have reason to believe that when the man, on marrying, quits his home and goes to live with his wife in the house or community of her father, his authority over his wife is commonly more or less impaired by the presence of her father or kinsfolk.212In Sumatra, in the mode of marriage calledambel anak, he lives with his father-in-law in a state between that of a son and that of a debtor.213But it should be noticed that neither his living with the family of his wife, nor even his dependence on her father, necessarily implies a total absence of marital power. Among the Californian Yokuts, though the husband takes up his abode in hiswife’s or father-in-law’s house, he is expressly stated to have the power of life and death over her.214So, also, in the Western islands of Torres Straits, though a man after marriage usually left his own people and went to live with those of his wife, he had complete control over her. “In spite of the wife having asked her husband to marry her, he could kill her should she cause trouble in the house, and that without any penal consequence to himself. The payment of a husband to his wife’s father gave him all rights over her, and at the same time annulled those of her father or her family.”215

206Steinmetz,Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, ii. ch. 7.

207Cf.Westermarck,op. cit.p. 99sqq.

208Idem, ‘Méthode pour la recherche des institutions préhistoriques à propos d’un ouvrage du professeur Kohler,’ inRevue Internationale de Sociologie, v. 451.

209Ratzel,op. cit.iii. 124.

210Waitz,op. cit.ii, 469.

211Reade,Savage Africa, p. 452.

212See Mazzarella,La condizione giuridica del marito nella famiglia matriarcale,passim; Grosse,Die Formen der Familie, p. 76; Wilkes,U.S. Exploring Expedition, iv. 447 (Spokane Indians). It seems, however, that Dr. Mazzarella in several cases infers the husband’s complete subjection to his father-in-law from statements in which such a subjection is not really implied.

213Marsden,History of Sumatra, p. 262.

214Powers,Tribes of California, p. 382.

215Haddon,Head-Hunters, p. 160sq.

In the first place, wives’ subjection to their husbands is due to the men’s instinctive desire to exert power and to the natural inferiority of women in such qualities of body and mind as are essential for personal independence. Generally speaking, the men are their superiors in strength and courage. They are therefore not only the protectors of their wives, but also their masters.

In the sexual impulse itself there are elements which lead to domination on the part of the man and to submission on the part of the woman. In courtship, animal and human alike, the male plays the more active, the female the more passive part. During the season of love the males even of the most timid animal species engage in desperate combats with each other for the possession of the female, and there can be no doubt that our primeval human ancestors had, in the same way, to fight for their wives; even now this kind of courtship is far from being unknown among savages.216Moreover, the male pursues and tries to capture the female, and she, after some resistance, finally surrenders herself to him. The sexual impulse of the male is thus connected with a desire to win the female, and the sexual impulse of the female with a desire to be pursued and won by the male. In the female sex there is consequently an instinctive appreciation of manly strength and courage; this is found in mostwomen, and especially in the women of savage races, who, like the females of the lower Vertebrates, commonly give the preference to “the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male.”217And woman enjoys the display of manly force even when it turns against herself. It is said that among the Slavs of the lower class the wives feel hurt if they are not beaten by their husbands; that the peasant women in some parts of Hungary do not think they are loved by their husbands until they have received the first box on the ear; that among the Italian Camorrists a wife who is not beaten by her husband regards him as a fool.218Dr. Havelock Ellis believes that the majority of women would probably be prepared to echo the remark made by a woman in front of Rubens’s ‘Rape of the Sabines,’ “I think the Sabine women enjoyed being carried off like that.”219The same judicious student of the psychology of sex observes:—“While in men it is possible to trace a tendency to inflict pain, or the simulacrum of pain, on the women they love, it is still easier to trace in women a delight in experiencing physical pain when inflicted by a lover, and an eagerness to accept subjection to his will. Such a tendency is certainly normal. To abandon herself to her lover, to be able to rely on his physical strength and mental resourcefulness, to be swept out of herself and beyond the control of her own will, to drift idly in delicious submission to another and stronger will—this is one of the commonest aspirations in a young woman’s intimate love-dreams.”220

216Westermarck,op. cit.p. 159sqq.

217Westermarck,op. cit.p. 255sq.

218Havelock Ellis,Studies in the Psychology of Sex, ‘Analysis of the Sexual Impulse,’ &c. p. 66sq.

219Ibid.p. 75.

220Ibid.p. 74.

But although a certain degree of submissiveness comes within the normal limits of female love, though “a woman may desire to be forced, to be roughly forced, to be ravished away beyond her own will.” she all the time only desires to be forced towards those things which are essentially agreeable to her.221If the man’s domination is carried beyond those limits, it is no longer enjoyed by thewoman, but is felt as a burden, and may call forth resistance. In extreme cases of oppression, at any rate, the community at large would sympathise with her, and the public resentment against the oppressor would gradually result in customs or laws limiting the husband’s rights. Yet perfect impartiality is hardly to be expected from the community. The men are the leaders of public opinion, and they have a tendency to favour their own sex. On the other hand, the offended woman may count upon the support of her fellow-sisters, and thus the women combined may influence tribal habits and, ultimately, the rules of custom. Among the Papuans of Port Moresby, for instance, “it is a rare occurrence for a man to beat his wife, and he does not like to be reminded of the fact if hasty temper has led him into this mistake. The other women generally make a song about it, and sing it whenever he appears; and as no one is so sensitive of ridicule as a New Guinean savage, he will endure a great deal, even from a shrew wife, before he attempts to lift his hand.”222Among the West African Fulah, if a man repudiates his wife, the women of the village attack himen masse; “like the members of a priesthood, they hate but protect each other.”223We have, moreover, to consider that the children’s affection and regard for their mother gives her a power which is no less real because it is not definitely expressed in custom or law. In Oriental countries, for example, the mother is always an important personage in the family. Children are afraid of their father but love their mother, and when grown-up would certainly be ready to protect her against a cruel husband.224

221Ibid.p. 85.

222Nisbet,A Colonial Tramp, ii. 181sq.

223Reade,Savage Africa, p. 452. See also Möller, Pagels, and Gleerup,op. cit.i. 171 (Lukungu); Munzinger,Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 324 (Beni Amer).

224Cf.Burton,Sindh Revisited, i. 293; Urquhart,Spirit of the East, ii. 265sq.; Doughty,Arabia Deserta, i. 239; Westermarck, ‘Position of Woman in Early Civilisation,’ inSociological Papers, [1.] p. 160.

It has often been said that the position of women and the degree of their dependence among a certain people are largely influenced by economic conditions. Thus Mr.Hale maintains that the condition of women is “a question of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack of food…. When men in their full strength suffer from lack of the necessaries of existence, and are themselves slaves to the rigours of the elements, their better feelings are benumbed or perverted, like those of shipwrecked people famishing on a raft. Under such circumstances the weaker members of the community—women, children, the old, the sick—are naturally the chief sufferers.”225With reference to the North American Indians the observation has been made that, where the women can aid in procuring subsistence for the tribe, they are treated with more equality, and their importance is proportioned to the share which they take in that labour; whereas in places where subsistence is chiefly procured by the exertions of the men, the women are considered and treated as burdens. Thus, the position of women is exceptionally good in tribes living upon fish and roots, which the women procure with the same expertness as the men, whereas it is among tribes living by the chase, or by other means in which women can be of little service, that we find the sex most oppressed.226Dr. Grosse, again, emphasises the lowstatusof women not only among hunters, but among pastoral tribes as well. “The women,” he says, “not being permitted to take part in the rearing of cattle, and not being able to take part in war, possess nothing which could command respect with the rude shepherd and robber.”227Among the lower agricultural tribes, on the other hand, Dr. Grosse adds, the position of the female sex is often higher. The cultivation of the ground mostly devolves on the woman, and among peoples who chiefly subsist by agriculture it is not an occupation which is looked down upon, as it is among nomadic tribes. This gives the woman acertain standing, owing to her importance as a food-provider.228

225Hale, ‘Language as a Test of Mental Capacity,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxi. 427.

226Lewis and Clarke,Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, p. 441. Waitz,op. cit.iii. 343. Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 242sq.

227Grosse,op. cit.pp. 48, 49, 74, 75, 109sqq.

228Ibid.p. 182.

In these generalisations there is no doubt a great deal of truth; but they do not hold good universally or without modifications. Among several peoples who subsist chiefly by the chase or the rearing of cattle, the position of women is exceedingly good. To mention only one instance out of many, Professor Vámbéry observes that among the nomadic Kara-Kirghiz the female sex is treated with greater respect than among those Turks who lead a stationary life and practise agriculture.229Indeed, the general theory that women are more oppressed in proportion as they are less useful, is open to doubt. Commonly they are said to be oppressed by their savage husbands just by being compelled to work too hard; and that work does not necessarily give authority is obvious from the institution of slavery. But at the same time the notion, prevalent in early civilisation, that the one sex must not in any way interfere with the pursuits of the other sex, may certainly, especially when applied to an occupation of such importance as agriculture, increase the influence of those who are engaged in it. Considering further that the cultivated soil is not infrequently regarded as the property of the women who till it,230it is probable that, in certain cases at least, the agricultural habits of a people have had a favourable effect upon the general condition of the female sex, and at the same time on the wife’s position in the family.

229Vámbéry,Das Türkenvolk, p. 268.

230Grosse,op. cit.p. 159sq.

Thestatusof wives is in various respects connected with the ideas held about the female sex in general. Woman is commonly looked upon as a slight, dainty, and relatively feeble creature, destitute of all nobler qualities.231Especially among nations more advanced in culture she is regarded as intellectually and morally vastly inferior to man. In Greece, in the historic age, the latter recognisedin her no other end than to minister to his pleasure or to become the mother of his children. There was also a general notion that she was naturally more vicious, more addicted to envy, discontent, evil-speaking, and wantonness, than the man.232Plato classes women together with children and servants,233and states generally that in all the pursuits of mankind the female sex is inferior to the male.234Euripides puts into the mouth of his Medea the remark that “women are impotent for good, but clever contrivers of all evil.”235According to the Vedic singer, again, “woman’s mind is hard to direct aright, and her judgment is small.”236To the Buddhist, women are of all the snares which the tempter has spread for men the most dangerous; in women are embodied all the powers of infatuation which bind the mind of the world.237The Chinese have a saying to the effect that the best girls are not equal to the worst boys.238Islam pronounces the general depravity of women to be much greater than that of men.239According to Muhammedan tradition, the Prophet said:—“I have not left any calamity more hurtful to man than woman…. O assembly of women, give alms, although it be of your gold and silver ornaments; for verily ye are mostly of Hell on the Day of Resurrection.”240The Hebrews represented woman as the source of evil and death on earth:—“Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die.”241This notion passed into Christianity. Says St. Paul, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”242Tertullian maintains that a woman should go about in humble garb, mourning and repentant, in order to expiate that which she derives from Eve, the ignominyof the first sin, and the odium attaching to her as the cause of human perdition. “Do you not know,” he exclaims, “that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age; the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.”243At the Council of Mâcon, towards the end of the sixth century, a bishop even raised the question whether woman really was a human being. He answered the question in the negative; but the majority of the assembly considered it to be proved by Scripture that woman, in spite of all her defects, yet was a member of the human race.244However, some of the Fathers of the Church were careful to emphasise that womanhood only belongs to this earthly existence, and that on the day of resurrection all women will appear in the shape of sexless beings.245

231Crawley,The Mystic Rose, p. 204sq.

232Dickinson,op. cit.p. 159. Döllinger,op. cit.ii. 234.

233Plato,Respublica, iv. 431.

234Ibid.v. 455.

235Euripides,Medea, 406sqq.

236Rig-Veda, viii. 33. 17.

237Oldenburg,Buddha, p. 165.Cf.Kern,Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 69.

238Smith,Proverbs of the Chinese, p. 265.

239Lane,Arabian Society, p. 219.Cf.Doughty,Arabia Deserta, i. 238.

240Lane-Poole,Speeches of Mohammad, pp. 161, 163.

241Ecclesiasticus, xxv. 24.

2421 Timothy, ii. 14.

243Tertullian,De cultu fœminarum, i. 1 (Migne,Patrologiæ cursus, i. 1305). See also Laurent,Études sur l’histoire de l’humanité, iv. 113.

244Gregory of Tours,Historia Francorum, viii. 20.

245St. Hilar.,Commentarius in Matthæum, xxiii. 4 (Migne,op. cit.ix. 1045sq.). St. Basil,Homilia in Psalmum cxiv.5 (Migne,op. cit.Ser. Graeca, xxix. 488).

Progress in civilisation has exercised an unfavourable influence on the position of woman by widening the gulf between the sexes, as the higher culture was almost exclusively the prerogative of the men. Moreover, religion, and especially the great religions in the world, have contributed to the degradation of the female sex by regarding woman as unclean. During menstruation, or when with child, or at child-birth, she is considered to be polluted, to be charged with mysterious baneful energy, which is a danger to all around her.246The cause of this notion seems to lie in thesuperstitious dread of those marvellous processes which then take place, and it reaches its height where there is appearance of blood.247On such occasions woman is shunned not only by men, but in an even higher degree by gods, for the obvious reason that contact with the unclean woman would injure or destroy their holiness. Indeed, the danger is considered so great, that many religions regard women as defiled not only temporarily, but permanently, and on that ground exclude them from religious worship.

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