A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3

by George Elliott Howard

[839] Beweddunge is the Anglo-Saxon term, and it is so used in the old English formulary of the tenth century: Schmid, Gesetze, Anhang, VI, 390. It means the act of "contracting" or "pledging," associated with the verb beweddian, "to contract": Schmid, 535, 536. It has the same origin as the modern "wed," "wedding," etc. On the beweddung see Siegel, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 450 ff.

[840] In early German law the "real contract" is the only contract recognized. There is no contract by mere convention, no "consensual" contract. Originally two-sided fulfilment was required. Thus, according to Sohm, Eheschliessung, 24 ff., in case of betrothal, payment of the price and tradition of the bride went hand in hand. Later one-sided performance, or even a formal act, was deemed sufficient, and through it the title was actually transferred; the purchaser thus acquiring the "negative" as opposed to the "positive" rights of property—the power to use and enjoy. Cf. Habicht, Altdeutsche Verlobung, 6, 7; Loening, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, II, 577-79; Young, in Essays, 167; Lehmann, Verlobung und Hochzeit, 77; Friedberg, Verlobung und Trauung, 7, 8; Stobbe, Reuerecht und Vertragschluss nach älterem deutschem Recht (Leipzig, 1876).

[841] Anglo-Saxon weotuma: Ælfred, Ecc. Laws, 12, 29: Schmid, Gesetze, 58, 62. Schroeder uses the term Muntschatz, which, however, is only found in Friesic law: Sohm, Eheschliessung, 33, note. Some form of weotuma appears in many dialects: Old German widemo, giving rise to Witthum; Longobardian meta; Burgundian wittemon; Friesic wetma (wethma, weetma); Alamannian widem: Schroeder Güterrecht, I, 46, 47, 24; Schmid, op. cit., 675; Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 422-24; Young, in Essays, 165; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 320, note, 336, passim; Schroeder, Rechtsgeschichte, 291, note, 161. Cf. Eckhardt, "Das Witthum," in Zeitsch. für deutsches Recht, X, 437 ff.; Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 315, 316; Smith, La famille chez les Burgondes, 5 ff.

[842] On the tutelage of woman in early Germanic law see Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 447 ff., 465; Sohm, Eheschliessung, 22, 50 ff.; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 193 ff.; II, 27; Gide, Étude sur la cond. privée de la femme, 280 ff., 339; Rive, Vormundschaft, I, 218 ff.; Kraut, Vormundschaft, I, 171-86; Leber, Des coutumes, 22 ff.; Reinsch, Stellung und Leben der deutschen Frau, 4 ff.; Habicht, Altd. Verlobung, 8 ff., 68; Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 17 ff., passim; Schroeder, Güterrecht, I, 1 ff.; idem, Rechtsgeschichte, 64 ff., passim; Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, I,75,89 ff.; Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 23 ff.; Kohler, "Die Ehe mit und ohne Mundium," ZVR., VI, 321 ff.; Waitz, in Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akademie, 1886, 375 ff.; Buckstaff, in Annals of Am. Acad., IV, 233 ff.; Stobbe, "Die Aufhebung der väterlichen Gewalt nach dem Recht des Mittelalters;" in Beiträge, 1-24, reviewing and criticising Kraut; Zoepfl, (R.), De tutela mulierum germanic. (Heidelberg, 1828); Emminghaus, De praecipuis germ. fem. (Jena, 1756); and Zoepfl (H.), Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, III, 1-4. Young, "Anglo-Saxon Family Law," Essays, 148 ff., denies that patria potestas existed in German law; and a similar view is taken by Adams, Political Essays, 31 ff.; but Heusler, Institutionen, II, 275, takes the opposite view. Cf. Smith, La famille chez les Burgondes, 13 ff. Ficker, Untersuchungen zur Rechtsgeschichte, III, 401 ff., insists that the sex-tutelage (Geschlechtsvormundschaft) did not exist under Frank law.

[843] That the betrothal is a contract relative to the mund is stoutly maintained by Dahn, Das Weib in altgerm. Recht und Leben, 4 ff., who absolutely rejects wife-purchase, declaring such an idea to be "abominable and impossible" ("abscheulich und unmöglich"). This theory is also held by Kraut, Vormundschaft I, 171; Schroeder, Güterrecht, I, 27 ff., 38, 79; yet Schroeder, Rechtsgeschichte, 68, 291 ff., regards the German marriage as in form a purchase of the bride. Rive, Vormundschaft, I, 258 ff., passim, denies that the betrothal has any relation to the mund, and rejects entirely the view that the sale-marriage ever existed among the Germans. Habicht, Altdeutsche Verlobung, 8 ff., 12, admits that originally the mund was a "property right" and the wife a "thing," though in the earliest written sources she appears as Rechtssubject. Sohm, Eheschliessung, 22, regards the Witthum as the price of the mund; but in his Trauung und Verlobung, 15, 16, he drops this view and declares the betrothal to be a contract to "give the bride in marriage," or, more directly, a "Kauf der Jungfrau." Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 17, 18, appears to hold that it was the mund which was conveyed; but elsewhere he seems to favor the opposite view for the early period. See his Verlobung und Trauung, 7 ff.; Lehrbuch, 339; and Zur Geschichte, 362 ff. Pollock and Maitland, Hist. of Eng. Law, II, 362, declare that "whatever guesses we may make about a remoter age, the 'bride-sale,' of which Tacitus had heard, was evidently no sale of a chattel. It was very different from the sale of a slave girl; it was a sale of the mund, the protectorship over the woman." Gide, Étude sur la cond. privée de la femme, 196-215, 335 ff.; and Henry Adams, Historical Essays, 31, are decidedly of the same opinion. Buckstaff, in Annals of Am. Acad., IV, 234, doubts whether the German woman was ever looked upon as a chattel; and Opet, "Die erbrechtliche Stellung der Weiber in der Zeit des Volksrechts," in Gierke's Untersuchungen, XXV, takes a very favorable view of woman's right of inheritance.

On the other hand, the betrothal is regarded as originally an actual sale of the bride by Glasson, Hist. du droit et des inst. de l'Angleterre, I, 116, 117; Grosse, Die Formen der Familie, 223, 234; Siegel, Rechtsgeschichte, 450-52; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 320; Heusler, Institutionen279 ff.; Loening, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, II, 578; Hofmann, Ueber den Verlobungs- und Trauring, 849, 850; Leber, Des coutumes, 22 ff.; Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, I, 104, 105; Sehling, Unterscheidung der Verlöbnisse, 32, 33; Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 420 ff.; Davoud-Oghlou, Législation des anciens Germains, I, xl-xli; Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie (apparently), 315-18; Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 24 ff.; and especially Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, I, 74 ff. Lehmann, Verlobung und Hochzeit, 7 ff., 78, 79, finds fainter traces of the sale-marriage among the Scandinavians than among the North Germans. Kohler, "Die Ehe mit und ohne Mundium," ZVR., VI, 321 ff., holds that marriage without mund on the part of the husband is the marriage of mother-right as opposed to the later Paternitätsrecht. See also Kohler, in ZVR., III, 354; and Waitz, "Ueber die Bedeutung des Mundium im deutschen Recht," Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akad., 1886, 375 ff., for a discussion of the meaning and content of mund. In general, cf. Königswarter, Hist. de l'organisation de la famille, 121 ff.; Laboulaye, Condition des femmes, 112 ff.; Strack, Aus dem deutschen Familienleben, I, 17 ff.; Beauchet, Mariage dans le droit islandais, 3 ff., 12 ff.

[844] Habicht, Altdeutsche Verlobung, 9, note, 68, insists that there is no practical difference between the sale of the Vormundschaft, or protection, and the sale of the bride. See Ficker, Untersuchungen zur Rechtsgeschichte, III, 393-419, who rejects the view that marriage has the same origin and character among all the German peoples.

[845] Æthelb., 77: Schmid, Gesetze, 8, 9. Liebermann, 7, translates: "Wenn jemand eine Jungfrau zur Ehe kauft." Another provision of this code reads: "If a free man lies with a free man's wife, let him buy her with her wergeld, and procure with his own property another woman and bring her home to him (the wronged husband)": Æthelred, 31: Schmid, 4, 5. Cf. Liebermann's ed., 5. See Roeder, Die Familie bei den Angelsachsen, 15 ff., 24 ff.

[846] Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, I, 74: "Wife-purchase is yet known to the earlier East Frisian sources, and it was still practiced in Denmark in the fifteenth century. "Und wie im Mittelalter die Redensart eine Frau zu kaufen vielfach verbreitet war, so bezeichnet in Holland der Volksmund noch jetzt die Braut als 'verkocht' (verkauft)."

[847] "Dotem non uxor marito, sed uxori maritus offert. Intersunt parentes ac propinqui; probant munera, non ad delicias muliebres quaesita, nec quibus nova nupta comatur, sed boves et frenatum equum et scutum cum framea gladioque. In haec munera uxor accipitur, atque invicem ipsa armorum aliquid viro affert. Hoc maximum vinculum, haec arcana sacra, hos conjugales deos arbitrantur."—Tacitus, Germania, c. 18.