[98] A story is told by an American traveller, of a party met upon the cars, the mother a delicate little personage, the father stout and strong. Upon leaving the train he walked off incommoded by a single traveling impedimenta, while the wife was almost hidden under the pack she was carrying. With indignation the American asked, “why do you not let the man take some of these things?” ‘What! and he the father of a family?’ was the surprised answer.
[99] It is unnecessary to let the whole many-colored map of German common law pass in review; a few specimens will suffice. According to German common law woman is everywhere in the position of a minor with regard to man; her husband is her lord and master, to whom she owes obedience in marriage. If she be disobedient, Prussian law allows a husband of “low estate” to inflict moderate bodily chastisement. As no provision is made for the number or severity of the blows, the amount of such chastisement is left to the sovereign discretion of the man. In the communal law of Hamburg the regulation runs as follows: “The moderate chastisement of a wife by her husband is just and permissible.” Similar enactments exist in many parts of Germany. The Prussian common law further decrees that the husband can determine the length of time during which a woman must suckle her child. All decisions with regard to the children rest with the father. When he dies the wife is everywhere under the obligation of accepting a guardian for the children; she is decided to be under age, and incapable of conducting the education of children alone, even when their means of support are derived entirely from her property or her labor. Her fortune is managed by her husband, and in cases of bankruptcy is regarded in most states as his and disposed of accordingly, unless a special contract has been made before marriage. When landed property is entailed on the eldest child, a daughter has no rights, as long as husband or brothers are alive; she cannot succeed unless she has no brothers or has lost them by death. She cannot exercise the political rights which are as a rule connected with landed property, unless in some exceptional cases, as for instance in Saxony, where communal regulations in the country allow her to vote, but deny her the right of being elected. But even this right is transferred to her husband if she marry. In most states she is not free to conclude agreements without the consent of her husband, unless she be engaged in business on her own account, which recent legislation permits her to do. She is excluded from every kind of public activity. The Prussian law concerning societies, forbids school-boys and apprentices under eighteen, and women to take part in political associations and public meetings. Until within the last few years women were forbidden by various German codes to attend the public law courts as listeners. If a woman becomes pregnant of an illegitimate child she has no claim on support if she accepted any present from the father at the time of their intimacy. If a woman is divorced from her husband, she continues to bear his name in eternal memory of him, unless she happens to marry again.
August Bebel.—Woman in the Past, Present and Future.
[100] Who, indeed, would not have been received by the queen.
[101] A German girl continues to be a maid-of-all-work until circumstances elevate her to a higher position. She becomes a mother, and this opens a fresh career to her as an amme or wet nurse. Her lines thenceforward fall in pleasant places. An amme is a person of consideration. No disgrace or loss of character is attached to the irregularity of conduct which often is the origin of her promotion to a higher sphere. Her wages are quadrupled; her fare by comparison is sumptuous; she can never be scolded; she is called upon to fulfill but one duty. The occupation is so much more remunerative than ordinary service, that one can scarcely be surprised if plenty of women are found ready and willing to follow the trade. With them the child is only a means to an end. Marriage among the lower orders in Germany is cumbered about with so many restrictions and conditions, that it has come to be looked upon as almost an impossibility.
[102] When Miss Aarta Hansteen, a Norwegian lady announced her purpose of lecturing on woman’s natural equality with man, she met little or no support, the church strenuously opposing on ground of woman’s original curse.
[103] Translated into English under title of “Nora,” by Miss Frances Lord.
[104] So profound was its effect that visiting invitations were coupled with the request not to speak of the work.
[105] Marian Brown Shipley, an American lady, long a resident of Sweden and thoroughly conversant with its literature and tone of thought, said of it, “A more glorious thing has not been done in Sweden for centuries, Strindberg has defied church and state, striking both to their foundations with his merciless satire, and rallied the Swedish people at a single stroke.”
[106] Bjornsen said, “The confiscating of August Strindberg’s book Giftas, is the greatest literary scandal in the North in my time. It is worse than when one wished to put me in the house of correction on account of the King; or thrust out Ibsen from the society of honorable people for gjengungerd (Ghosts).”