Incidents of similar character stirred the German citizens of Philadelphia to revolt against the unjust treatment to which their immigrant countrymen and women were subjected. At a meeting on Christmas Day of 1764, they formed “The German Society of Pennsylvania,” with the purpose of securing laws for the abolishment of all abuses which had grown out of the treatment of immigrants. Such a law was secured on May 18th of the following year.
The “German Society of Pennsylvania” became the model for many similar institutions in all parts of America. By uncovering evils and by vigorous persecutions of guilty persons, by continuously framing and recommending effective laws, these societies secured at last a better treatment of the immigrants on the ocean as well as after landing. With full justice these societies may be called the true originators of our modern immigration laws.—
They also established the “Legal Aid Societies,” to assist poor people in need of legal advice and help. As these institutions spread over hundreds of cities of America as well as of Europe, we see that since the Christmas meeting in Philadelphia in 1764 untold millions of people have profited by the earnest work, begun by that small band of Germans, who had the welfare of their poor countrymen at heart, and showed what genuine Christmas spirit can do for humanity, if it is only put to a proper purpose.
There existed yet another form of female slavery, the worst of all. With the development of the feudal system in mediæval Europe, which made the poor man, especially the peasant, dependent on the lord or owner of the land he cultivated, the lords appropriated in time unlimited sway over their vassals. Among other rights they claimed not only that to marry him or her to whomsoever the lord might chose, but also absolute control of the vassal’s newly wedded bride for the first three days and nights. This custom, known by a variety of names, as “jus primæ noctis, droit de cuissage,” “marchetta” or “marquette,” had the sanction of the state as well as of the church and compelled newly married women to the most dishonorable servitude. If the female serf pleased the lord he enjoyed her, and it was from this custom, that the eldest son of the serf was always held as the son of the lord, “as perchance it was he, who begot him.”
If it should happen that the young bride did not meet the fancy of the lord, he let her alone, but in such case the husband had to redeem her by paying the lord a certain amount of money, the name of which betrayed its nature.
Matilde Joslyn Gage in her able book “Woman, Church and State” has devoted a whole chapter to the history of marquette and says:
“The seigneural tenure of the feudal period was a law of Christian Europe more dishonorable than the worship of Astarte at Babylon. In order to fully comprehend the vileness of marquette we must remember that it did not originate in the pagan country many thousand years since; that it was not a heathen custom transplanted to Europe with many others adopted by the church, but that it arose in Christian countries a thousand years after the origin of that religion, continuing in existence until within the last century.”
She further states that in France even the Bishops of Amiens and the canons of the cathedral of Lyons possessed the right over the women of their vassals, and that in several counties of the Piccardy the curés imitated the bishops and took the right of cuissage, when the bishop had become too old to take his right. She also states, that “marquette began to be abolished in France toward the end of the 16th Century, but still existed in the 19th Century in the County of Auvergne, and that the lower orders of the clergy were very unwilling to relinquish this usage, vigorously protesting to their archbishops against the deprivation of this right, declaring they could not be dispossessed.
“But finally the reproach and infamy connected with the ‘droit de cuissage’ became so great, and the peasants became so recalcitrant over this nefarious exaction, that ultimately both lords spiritual and lords temporal, fearing for their own safety, commenced to lessen their demands.”