[18] Therefore a single woman for whom no bid was offered, an “old maid” was looked upon with contempt as being of no value in the eyes of men.
[19] Hist. of Crime in England, Vol. I, p. 90.
[20] By the laws of the king of Wessex, who lived at the end of the VIII century, the purchase of wives is deliberately sanctioned; in the preface it is stated that the compilation was drawn up with the assistance of the Bishop of Winchester and a large assemblage of God’s servants.—Ibid.
[21] Nothing, says Pike, was considered but the market value of the woman, and the adulterer was compelled to expend the equivalent of her original price on the purchase of a new bride, whom he formally delivered to the injured husband. Nor were these laws merely secular, they were enacted and enforced by all the dread power of the church.—Ibid.
[22] In the 14th century either the female character was utterly dissolute, or the tyranny of husbands utterly reckless, when we find that it was no uncommon circumstance that women were strangled by masked assassins, or walking by the river side were plunged into it. This drowning of women gave rise to a popular proverb: “It is nothing, only a woman being drowned.” And this condition constituted the domestic life of England from the 12th century to the first civil war, when the taste of men for bloodshed found wider scope, and from the murder of women they advanced to the practice of cutting one another’s throats. Disraeli.—Amenities of Literature, Vol. I., p. 95.
[23] “And they were so covetous that for a little silver they sellen ’ein daughters, ’ein sisters and ’ein own wives, to putten ’ein to lechery.”
[24] The Church from the earliest period furnished its full portion to the codes of our simple forefathers, that of the first Christian king being that for the property of God and the Church (if stolen) twelvefold compensation was to be made. Thorpe.—Ancient Laws and Institutions of England.
[25] Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. XVI., Edinburg, 1872.
[26] Until the maiden was wedded she was kept strictly under control, and the kind of discipline which was enforced is well illustrated by a letter written late in the reign of Henry VI. The writer was the widow of a landholder, and she was corresponding with the brother of the young lady whose case she describes and whom she is anxious to serve by finding a husband. This young lady was under the care of her mother and the following was her condition: She might not speak with any man, not even her mother’s servants; and she had since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week, or twice, and sometimes thrice in a day, and her hand was broken in two or three places. Pike.—History of Crime in England.
[27] Britton.—Introduction, p. 39. Glanville.—De Legibius Anglica, p. 158.