The father’s power over his children may imply that the latter, even when grown-up, have no property of their own, the father having a right to the disposal of their earnings. This is the case among some African peoples,[257] and the Kandhs of India.[258] In the Laws of Manu, the mythical legislator of the Hindus, it is said, “A wife, a son, and a slave, these three are declared to have no property; the wealth they earn is acquired for him to whom they belong.”[259] But according to the standard commentators this only means that the persons mentioned are unable to dispose of their property independently;[260] and it is expressly stipulated that property acquired by learning belongs exclusively to the person to whom it was given, and so also the gift of a friend.[261] In Rome the peculium, or separate property, allowed to a son was originally subject to the authority of the house-father, should he choose to exercise such authority; and it was only by very late legislation that sons were secured the independent holding of their peculium.[262] Even now it is the law in many European countries that, during the minority of a child, the father or mother has the usufruct of its property, with the exception of certain kinds of property expressly specified.[263]
[257] Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, p. 51. Kraft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 285 (Wapokomo). Munzinger, Ueber die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 36. Among the Barea and Kunáma a man’s earnings belong to his father until he builds a house for himself, that is, until he marries (Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 477). Among the Basutos parents can deprive their sons of their earnings at pleasure (Endemann, ‘Mittheilungen über die Sotho-Neger,’ in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. vi. 39).
[258] Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 62.
[259] Laws of Manu, viii. 416. See also Nárada, v. 41.
[260] Buehler, in his translation of the Laws of Manu, Sacred Books of the East, xxv. 326, n. 416.
[261] Laws of Manu, ix. 206.
[262] Hunter, Exposition of Roman Law, p. 292 sqq. Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, p. 252. Girard, Manuel élémentaire de droit romain, pp. 135, 138 sqq.
[263] Bridel, Le droit des femmes et le mariage, p. 156.
Among some uncivilised peoples women are said to be incapable of holding property;[264] but this is certainly not the rule among savage tribes, not even among the very lowest. When Mr. Snow wished to buy a canoe from some Fuegians, his request was refused on the ground that the object in question belonged to an old woman, who would not part with it;[265] and among the blacks of Australia Mr. Curr has often heard husbands ask permission of their wives to take something out of their bags.[266] There are instances in which the property owned by a woman is by marriage transferred to her husband;[267] but more commonly, it seems, the wife remains mistress of her own property during the existence of the marriage relation.[268] Among many savages considerable proprietary privileges are granted to the female sex. We have seen that the household goods are frequently regarded as the special property of the wife.[269] Among the Navahos of New Mexico everything, except horses and cattle, practically belongs to the married women.[270] Among the Kafirs of Natal, “when a man takes his first wife, all the cows he possesses are regarded as her property,” and the husband can, theoretically, neither sell nor otherwise dispose of them without his wife’s consent.[271] The Mandans of North America have a custom that all the horses which a young man steals or captures in war belong to his sisters.[272] Among the Koch of India, we are told, “the men are so gallant as to have made over all property to the women.”[273] As regards woman’s right of ownership, nations of a higher culture compare unfavourably with many savages. In Japan the husband formerly had full rights over the property of his wife.[274] We have already noticed the disabilities in point of ownership to which women were once subject in India; but the development of strīdhana, or peculium of the female members of a family, shows that they gradually became less dependent on their husbands in matters relating to property.[275] Among the ancient Hebrews women appear to have been in every respect regarded as minors so far as proprietary rights were concerned.[276] In Rome a marriage with conventio in manum, which was the regular form of marriage in early times, gave the husband a right to all the property which the wife had when she married, and entitled him to all she might acquire afterwards whether by gift or by her own labour.[277] Later on marriage without manus became the ordinary Roman marriage, and this, together with the downfall of the ancient patria potestas, led to the result that finally all the wife’s property was practically under her own control, save when a part of it had been converted by settlement into a fund for contributing to the expenses of the conjugal household.[278] But, as we have noticed in another place, the new religion was not favourable to the remarkable liberty granted to married women during the pagan Empire;[279] and the combined influence of Teutonic custom and Canon law led to those proprietary incapacities of wives which up to quite recent times have disfigured the lawbooks of Christian Europe.[280] In England, before 1857, even a man who had abandoned his wife and left her unaided to support his family might at any time return to appropriate her earnings and to sell everything she had acquired, and he might again and again desert her, and again and again repeat the process of spoliation. In 1870 a law was passed securing to women the legal control of their own earnings, but all other female property, with some insignificant exceptions, was left absolutely unprotected. And it was not until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 that a full right to their own property was given to English wives.[281]
[264] Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa, p. 13 (tribes of the Cameroons). Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, p. 206. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 129 (some Indian tribes of North America).