History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I

by Unknown

Under such religious teaching as to woman, naught could be expected but that the laity would closely imitate the priesthood. Although Church and State may not be legally united, it is impossible for any religious opinion to become widely prevalent without its influencing legislation. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the priesthood possessed great influence; but after the Norman Conquest, ecclesiasticism gained greater control in England. Previous to this, a man was compelled by law to leave his wife one-third of his property, and could leave her as much, more as he pleased. Under ecclesiastical law he was not permitted to will her more than one-third, and could leave her as much less as he pleased. Glanville laid it down as a law of the kingdom that no one was compelled to leave another person any portion of his property, and that the part usually devised to wives was left them at the dictate of affection and not of law.

Women were not permitted to testify in court unless on some question especially concerning themselves. It is but twenty years since this law was annulled in Scotland, and but three years since, that by the influence of Signor Morelli,[187] the Parliament of Italy repealed the old restriction upon woman's testimony.

Sisters were not allowed to inherit with brothers, the property, according to old ecclesiastical language, going "to the worthiest of blood." Blackstone acknowledges that this distinction between brothers and sisters reflects shame upon England, and was no part of the old Roman law, where the children of a family inherited equally without distinction of sex. It is but two years since the old law of inheritance of sons alone was repealed in one of the Swiss Cantons. Even in this enlightened age its repeal met much opposition, men piteously complaining that they would be ruined by this act of justice done their sisters.

The minds of people having been corrupted through centuries by Church doctrines regarding woman, it was an easy step for the State to aid in her degradation. The system of Feudalism rising from the theory of warfare as the normal condition of man, still further oppressed woman by bringing into power a class of men accustomed to deeds of violence, and finding their chief pleasure in the sufferings of others. To be a woman, appealed to no instinct of tenderness in this class. To be a woman was not to be protected even, unless she held power in her own right, or was acting in place of some feudal lord. The whole body of villeins and serfs were under absolute dominion of the Feudal Lords. They were held as possessing no rights of their own: the Priest had control of their souls, the Lord of their bodies. But it was not upon the male serfs that the greatest oppression fell.

Although the tillage of the soil, the care of swine and cattle was theirs, the masters claiming the half or more of everything even to one-half the wool shorn from the flock,[188] and all exactions upon them were great while their sense of security was slight, it was upon their wives and daughters that the greatest outrages were inflicted. It was a pastime of the castle retainers to fall upon peaceful villages to the consternation of its women, who were struck, tortured, were great, while their sense of security was slight, it was upon and made the sport of the ribald soldiery, "Serfs of the Body," they had no protection. The vilest outrages were perpetrated by the Feudal Lords under the name of Rights. Women were taught by Church and State alike, that the Feudal Lord or Seigneur had a right to them, not only as against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their marriage, and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, "as perchance it was he who begat him." From this nefarious degradation of woman, the custom of Borough-English arose, in which the youngest son became the heir. The original signification of the word borough being to make secure, the peasant through Borough-English made secure the right of his own son to what inheritance he might leave, thus cutting off the claim of the possible son of his hated lord. France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, and all Christian countries where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of Marquette. The lord deemed this right as fully his as he did the claim to half the crops of the land, or to the half of the wool sheared from the sheep. More than one reign of terror arose in France from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the peasantry over Europe during the twelfth century, and the fierce Jacquerie, or Peasant War, of the fourteenth century in France owed their origin, among other causes, to the enforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly-married wife. The Edicts of Marly securing the Seigneural Tenure in Lower Canada, transplanted that claim to America when Canada was under the control of France.

To persons not conversant with the history of feudalism, and of the Church for the first fifteen hundred years of its existence, it will seem impossible that such foulness could ever have been part of Christian civilization. That the crimes they have been trained to consider the worst forms of heathendom could have existed in Christian Europe, upheld by both Church and State for more than a thousand five hundred years, will strike most people with incredulity. Such, however, is the truth; we can but admit well-attested facts of history how severe a blow soever they strike our preconceived beliefs.

Marquette was claimed by the Lords Spiritual[189] as well as by the Lords Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base feudal claim. With the power of penance and excommunication in its grasp, this feudal demand could neither have originated nor been sustained unless sanctioned by the Church.

In Scotland, Margaret, wife of Malcolm Conmore, generally known, from her goodness, as St. Margaret,[190] exerted her royal influence in 1057, against this degradation of her sex, but despite the royal prohibition and the substitution of the payment of a merk in money instead, the custom had such a foothold and appealed so strongly to man's licentious appetite it still continued, remaining in existence nearly seven hundred years after the royal edict against its practice. These customs of feudalism were the customs of Christianity during many centuries.[191] These infamous outrages upon woman were enforced under Christian law by both Church and State.[192]

The degradation of the husband at this infringement of the lord spiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by many writers, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame of the wife. No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church, which should have been the great conserver of morals, dragged her to the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly customs. The State, which should have defended her civil rights, followed the example of the Church in crushing her to the earth. God Himself seemed to have forsaken woman. Freedom for the peasants was found alone at night. Known as the Birds of the Night, Foxes and Birds of Prey, it was only at these night assemblages they enjoyed the least happiness or security. Here, with wives and daughters, they met together to talk, of their gross outrages. Out of these foul wrongs grew the sacrifice of the "Black Mass," with woman as officiating priestess, in which the rites of the Church were travestied in solemn mockery, and defiance cast at that heaven which seemed to permit the priest and lord alike to trample upon all the sacred rights of womanhood in the names of religion and law.

During this mocking service a true sacrifice of wheat was offered to the Spirit of the Earth who made wheat to grow, and loosened birds bore aloft to the God of Freedom the sighs and prayers of the serfs asking that their descendants might be free. We can not do otherwise than regard this sacrifice as the most acceptable offering made in that day of moral degradation, a sacrifice and prayer more holy than all the ceremonials of the Church. This service, where woman, by virtue of her greater despair, acted both as altar and priest, opened by the following address and prayer: "I will come before Thine altar, but save me, O Lord, from the faithless and violent man!" (from the priest and the baron).[193] From these assemblages, known as "Sabbat," or "the Sabbath," from the old Pagan Midsummer-day sacrifice to "Bacchus Sabiesa," rose the belief in the "Witches' Sabbath," which for several hundred years formed a new source of accusation against women, and sent tens of thousands of them to the most horrible death.