SCENE XIV
The JURY and the JUDGE enter and resume their seats.
JUDGE. As we now have the case complete before us, I shall ask each juror separately to state his opinion before decision is rendered. Personally, I can only hold it reasonable that the child be given to the mother, as both parties are equally to blame for the estrangement, and as the mother must be held better adapted to the care of the child than the father. [Silence.
ALEXANDER EKLUND. According to prevailing law, it is the wife who takes her rank and condition from the husband, not the husband from the wife.
EMMANUEL WICKBERG. And the husband is the proper guardian of his wife.
CARL JOHAN SJÖBERG. The ritual, which gives binding force to the marriage, says that the wife should obey her husband, and so it is clear to me that the man takes precedence of the woman.
ERIC OTTO BOMAN. And the children are to be brought up in the faith of the father.
ÄRENFRID SÖDERBERG. From which may be concluded that children follow the father and not the mother.
OLOF ANDERSSON OF WIK. But as in the case before us both man and wife are equally guilty, and, judging by what has come to light, equally unfit to rear a child, I hold that the child should be taken away from both.