Although in the earlier ages of marriage by sale or contract, daughters were regarded as the property of their fathers, still that stage had not been reached at which women were accounted simply as sexual slaves. The Arabs practised marriage by sale or contract, yet they jealously watched over their women,—they “defended them with their lives and eagerly redeemed them when they were taken captive.” They thought it better to bury their daughters than to give them in marriage to unworthy husbands.[132] According to the testimony of J. G. Wood, Kaffir women are very tenacious about their relations, probably, it is thought, for the reason that husbands are more respectful toward wives who have friends near them, than they are to those who have no relations at hand to take their part.[133] Usually among the Kaffirs, according to Mr. Shooter, although a man pays a price to the parents of the woman whom he wishes to marry, the affair is by no means settled; on the contrary, he must undergo the closest scrutiny by her before she will consent to accept him. Bidding him stand, she surveys first one side of him, then the other, the relations in the meantime standing about awaiting her decision. Upon this subject Mr. Wood remarks: “This amusing ceremony has two meanings: the first that the contract of marriage is a voluntary act on both sides; and the second, that the intending bridegroom has as yet no authority over her.”[134]
Although under the system of marriage by sale or contract a woman has a voice in the selection of her husband, and although she can count on her kinsmen to protect her against abuse, still, practically, the contract brings the wife under the same condition as a captured wife; she follows her husband to his home, where, as a dependent, he exercises control over her person and her children. In Arabia prior to the time of the Prophet the wife could claim the protection of her kindred against her husband, yet the principle underlying marriage by contract and that by capture was the same, except that under the former the husband paid a price for the woman’s sexual subjection, while under the latter, not only in sexual matters, but in all others as well, he was her “lord” and master.
The Prophet says: “I charge you with your women, for they are with you as captives (awânî).” Professor Smith informs us that according to the lexicons awânî is actually used in the same sense as married women generally.[135] For long ages after ba’al marriages had been established, so degrading was the office of wife that women of rank were considered too great to marry.
After relating some interesting accounts of certain practices in common with the custom of capture among the Brazilian tribes, Sir John Lubbock says:
This view also throws some light on the remarkable subordination of the wife to the husband, which is so characteristic of marriage, and so curiously inconsistent with all our avowed ideas; moreover it tends to explain those curious cases in which Hetairæ were held in greater estimation than those women who were, as we should consider, properly and respectably married to a single husband. The former were originally fellow-countrywomen and relations; the latter captives and slaves.[136]
With the development of the egoistic principle, or when selfishness and the love of gain became the rule of action, the protection of her kindred, which in an earlier age a woman could count on against her husband, was withdrawn, and daughters came to be looked upon as a legitimate source of gain to their families. On this subject C. Staniland Wake remarks:
Women by marriage became slaves, and it was the universal practice for a man who parted with his daughter to be a slave to require a valuable consideration for her. Moreover, as a man can purchase as many slaves as he likes, so he can take as many wives as he pleases.[137]
Thus arose polygamy.
In Rome, in the Latter Status of barbarism and the opening ages of civilization, woman, at marriage, forfeited all the privileges belonging to her as a member of her own family, while within that of her husband no compensatory advantages were granted her. Even a proprietary right in her own children was denied her, and from a legal point of view the wife became the daughter of her husband, and not unfrequently the ward of her own son.
After the power gained by man over woman during the latter ages of barbarism had reached its height, the family was based not on the marriage of a woman and a man, but upon the power of a man over a woman and her offspring, or upon the absolute authority of the male parent. In Rome a man’s wife and children were members of his family not because they were related to him but because they were subject to his control. At this stage in the development of the family, the father had the power of “uncontrolled corporal chastisement” and of life and death over his children.[138] If it was his will to do so, he could even sell them. Indeed, a son’s freedom from paternal tyranny could be gained only by the actual sale of his person by his father. Relating to the control exercised by the father over his children, it is observed that he had the right “during their whole life to imprison, scourge, keep to rustic labour in chains, to sell or slay, even though they may be in the enjoyment of high state offices.”[139] If a father granted freedom to his son, that son was no longer a member of his family.