[284] Baba Meziah, fol. 59 A, quoted ibid. p. 112. Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 56.
[285] Laws of Manu, iii. 55 sqq.
[286] Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, ii. 317.
[287] For some instances of this custom see Andree, ‘Die Asyle,’ in Globus, xxxviii. 302; Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, p. 420 (Basques).
[288] Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 318.
[289] Pallas, Travels through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire, i. 404.
[290] Fischer, Bergreisen, i. 60.
Yet another factor remains to be mentioned as a cause of the subjection in which married women are held by many peoples of culture. We have noticed that in archaic civilisation the father’s power over his children is extreme, that the State whilst weakening or destroying the clan-tie strengthened the family-tie, and that the father was invested with some part of the power which formerly belonged to the clan.[291] This process must also have affected the status of married women. The husband’s power over his wife is closely connected with the father’s power over his daughter; for, by giving her in marriage, he generally transfers to the husband the authority which he himself previously possessed over her as a paternal right.
[291] Supra, [ch. xxv.] especially [p. 627 sq.]
In modern civilisation, on the other hand, we find, hand in hand with the decrease of the father’s power, a decrease of the husband’s authority over his wife. But the causes of the gradual emancipation of married women are manifold. Life has become more complicated; the occupations of women have become much more extensive; their influence has expanded correspondingly, from the home and household to public life. Their widened interests have interfered with that submissiveness which is an original characteristic of their sex. Their greater education has made them more respected, and has increased their independence. Finally, the decline of the influence exercised by antiquated religious ideas is removing what has probably been the most persistent cause of the wife’s subjection to her husband’s rule.