It is but a few years since the great and enlightened city of Paris caused the arrest, under police authority, of fourteen women upon charge of sorcery; and it is but little more than twenty years since a woman in the state of Puebla, Mexico, was hung and burned as a witch, because unable to reveal the whereabouts of a lost animal. She was seized, hung to a tree, shot at and then plunged into fire until she expired.[85] The body at first buried in the cemetery, was exhumed the following day by order of the priest, who refused to allow the remains of a witch to be buried in consecrated ground. The state, in person of the mayor of the city, authorized the proceedings by taking part in them as principal persecutor. In the same province another woman was severely flogged as a witch, by four men, one of them her own son. Thus now, as in its earlier ages, wherever the light of civilization has not overcome the darkness of the church, we find woman still a sufferer from that ignorance and superstition which under Christianity, teaches that she brought sin into the world.
Chapter Six
Wives
Under Roman law before Christianity had gained control of the empire, a form of marriage existed known as “Usus,” which secured much freedom to wives. It was entered into without the terrifying religious ceremonies which made “Confarreatio,” practically indissoluble and the wife the veritable slave of the husband, who held power even over her life. Neither did it possess the civil formality of “Coemptio” under which the bride purchased entrance into the marriage duties and her husband’s household by the payment of three pieces of copper.[1] “Coemptio” like “Confarreatio” gave the husband entire power over the person and property of the wife, while “Usus,” a form of simple consent left the wife practically free, keeping her own name and property. The real origin of this form of marriage is not fully known. Maine declared it to be as old as or even older than the Twelve Tables, under which woman possessed the right to repudiation in marriage. These laws, a compilation of still older ones, were afterwards incorporated into statutes by a woman of Athens, and were received by the Romans as extremely pure natural laws.[2] Plato refers to an early Athens entirely ruled by women, its laws of pre-eminently just character. Tradition, whose basis is half forgotten, half remembered history, attributes the origin of Athens to the ancient Atlantians. The former existence of this submerged continent is daily becoming more fully recognized. The explorations of the “Challenger,” the “Dolphin,” the “Gazelle,” and the discoveries of Le Plongeon in Yucatan, at later date, confirming olden tradition. Maine thus ascribes a much older origin to “Usus” than Gibbon, who attributes it to the effect of the Punic triumphs.[3] In reality “Usus” seems to have been a reminiscence of the Matriarchate, incorporated into the law of the Twelve Tables, and accepted by Rome as a more just form of the marriage relation for women than the religious “Confarraetio” or the civil form of “Coemptio.” But as Rome increased in wealth and luxurious modes of living, the influence of the Patriarchate correspondingly extended, the perception of justice at the same time diminishing. Pomp and ceremony were associated with the marriage rite among patricians, while “Usus” was regarded as a plebeian form especially suited to the populace. But at later date when Rome rebelling against the tyranny of her rulers, tended towards a republican form of government, “Usus” again became general. It was impossible for patrician women not to see the greater freedom of plebeian wives under “Usus,” a form that while equally binding in the essentials of the union did not make the wife a marital slave,[4] and “Usus” eventually became the basis of Roman legal conception of marriage, against which Christianity from the first waged a warfare of ever increasing fierceness,[5] the very foundation of that religion being the subordination of woman in every relation of life. Under “Usus” the mere fact of two persons living together as husband and wife was regarded as a marriage. If during each year the wife remained away from the home for three days, she kept herself from under her husband’s power. She remained a part of her father’s family; her husband could not mortgage or in any way alienate her property. This was absolutely contrary to the laws of the christian form of marriage, under which the wife surrendered her person, her property, and her conscience, into the indisputable control of the husband. Under “Usus” a large proportion of Roman property fell into woman’s hands. She became the real estate holder of the Eternal City and its provinces, and in consequence was treated with great respect; the holding of property, especially of real estate conducing to that end. Under “Usus” the cruelties sanctioned by “Confarraetio” were rendered impossible; a wife could no longer be put to death, as was formerly the custom, for having tasted wine, a treacherous kiss from her husband upon his return home, betraying her, nor could her infant daughter be exposed or murdered at the pleasure of her husband who as inexorable master was frequently wont to refuse her pleadings for the life of her babe, calling her prayers naught but the scruples of a foolish woman.[6]
Thus under “Usus” human life became more sacred, and woman endowed with a greater sense of personal security. It affected an entire change for the better, in the moral sentiments of the Roman empire.[7] A complete revolution had thus passed over the constitution of the family. This must have been the period, says Maine, when a juriconsulist of the empire defined marriage as a life long fellowship of all divine and human rights.
Not alone Maine, but also Reeves, failed not to see that the disruption of the Roman Empire was very unfavorable to the personal and proprietory rights of woman.[8] The practical effect of the common Roman form of marriage being the absolute legal independence of the wife, under which a large proportion of Roman property fell into the hands of women, the wife retaining her family name and family inheritance. All this was changed as soon as Christianity obtained the rule. Under Christian forms of marriage a wife was taken from her own family and transferred into that of her husband the same as a piece of property. She assumed his name, the same as the slave took that of the new master to whom he was transferred. That this idea of the wife as a slave did not belong alone to the earlier christian period, but is a part of christian doctrine of today is clearly shown by the continued custom of a woman’s dropping her family name upon marriage and assuming that of the husband-master.
For this middle Roman period carried its blessings to wives no longer than until the empire became christianized, when the tyranny of ecclesiastical marriage again fell to woman’s lot. While under the influence of “Usus,” Roman jurists of the middle period had declared the ownership of property by married women to be a principle of equity; this drew forth opposing legislation from the christians, and under christian law, the husband again became master of his wife’s person, and property, her children also falling under his entire control, the mother possessing no authority over them. From that period down to the twentieth century of christianity, under all changing civil laws, woman has ever felt the oppressions of ecclesiasticism in this relation.[9]
Guizot strangely declares that woman’s present, and what he terms, superior, position in the household today, is due to feudalism.[10] The isolation and strife under which the nobility lived during the feudal period, warring against each other when not engaged in foreign aggression, compelled to certain forms of social life within each castle, thus creating the modern family, or the family under its present social form. At that period the feudal wife with her retinue of household serfs and a vast number of her husband’s retainers in charge, held a more responsible position than that of woman under primitive christian habits of life. But the knights and lords of these feudal castles were lecherous robbers, rather than men of kindly regard for womankind. Their inclination was not towards justice or family life, but the despoiling of all beneath them, and even of their equals with whom they were not upon terms of amity. The ruins of such castles, like the nest of the eagle, perched upon some inaccessible rock, add today an element of picturesque beauty to the Rhine and other rivers of Europe, but owe their elevated and isolated positions of the evil character of their owners, the banditti of the middle ages.[11] When not engaged with their king in warfare, they made the despoiling of serfs and the betrayal of wives and daughters their chief diversion, the robbery of burghers and travelers their business; churchmen equally with laymen living by the same means.