[250-1] This expression is applicable only in times of higher civilization where individual disposition of self is considered the most essential want. During the middle ages, when the family tie is yet so strong, the contract of marriage was generally formed by the family; but this was not, as a rule, felt a restraint. In France, at the present time, of 1,000 men who marry before their 20th year, 30.8 marry women from 35 to 50 years of age, and 4.8 who marry women over 50 years of age. (Wappäus, A. Bevölkerung. Stat. II, 291.)
[250-2] Propertius bitterly complains of the corruption prevalent in love affairs in his time. (III, 12.) In the Hellenic world, also, among the successors of Alexander the Great, there was a revoltingly large number of marriages de convenance, so that even the old Seleucos took to wife the grand-daughter of his competitor Antegonos, Lysimachos the daughter of Ptolemy etc. Dante's lament over the anxiety of fathers to whom daughters are born concerning their future dowry: Paradiso, XV, 103. Florentine law of 1509, against large dowries: Machiavelli, Lett. fam., 60. In the United States, marriage dowries are of little importance. (Graf Görtz, Reise um die Welt, 116.)
[250-3] Seneca, de Benef., III, 16—a frightful chapter. Also, I, 9. Juvenal speaks of ladies who in five years had married eight men (IV, 229, seq.), and Jerome saw a woman buried by her 23d husband, who himself had had 21 wives, one after another, (ad. Ageruch, I, 908.) The first instance of a formal divorce diffareatio is said to have occurred in the year 523, after the building of the city (Gellius, IV, 3), a clear proof that the Romulian description of marriage, as κοινωνία ἁπάντων ἱερῶν καὶ χρημάτων[TN 93] (Dionys., A. R. II., 25), was long a true one. The old manus-marriage certainly supposes great confidence of the wife and her parents in the fidelity of the husband, while the marriage law of the time of the emperors relating to estates never lost sight of the possibility of divorce. The facility of obtaining amicable divorces (the most dangerous of all) appears from the gifts allowed, divorti causa, in L., 11, 12, 13, 60, 61, 62; Dig., XXIV, 1. In Greece, we meet with the characteristic contrast, that, in earlier times, wives were bought, but that later, large dowries had to be insured to them or the risk of divorce at pleasure be assumed. (Hermann, Privataltherthümer, § 30.) How women themselves married again, even on the day of their divorce, see Demosth., adv. Onet., 873; adv. Eubul., 1311. On Palestine, see Gospel of John, 4, 17 ff. Concerning present Egypt, where prostitution is carried on especially by cast-off wives, see Wachenhusen, vom ägypt, armen Mann, II, 139. During the great French revolution, divorces were so easily obtained that but little was wanted to make a community of wives. (Vierzig Bücher, IV, 205; Handbuch des französischen[TN 94] Civilrechts, § 450.) The more divorces there are in a Prussian province, the more illegitimate births also. Thus, for instance, Brandenburg, 1860-64, had 1,721 divorces, and one illegitimate birth for every 7.8 legitimate (max.). Rhenish Prussia, four divorces and one illegitimate birth for every 25.4 legitimate (min.). In the cities of Saxony, it is estimated there are, for every 10,000 inhabitants, 36 divorced persons; in the country, only 19 (Haushofer, Statistik, 487 seq.); in Württemberg, 20; Thuringia, 33; all Prussia, 19; Berlin, 83. (Schwabe, Volkszählung von, 1867 p. XLV.)
[250-4] Cicero, in his speech for Cluentius, gives us a picture of the depth to which families in his time had fallen through avarice, lust, etc., which it makes one shudder to contemplate. Moreover, of the numerous families mentioned in Drumann's history, there are exceedingly few which, either actively or passively had not had some share in some odious scandal. Concerning even Cato, see Plutarch,[TN 95] Cato, II, 25. Messalina's systematic patronage of adultery: Dio Cass., LX, 18.
[250-5] Gellius, I, 6. In Greece, the same symptoms appear clearly enough, even in Aristophanes: compare especially his Thesmophoriazusae.[TN 96] The frequently cited woman-hatred of Euripides is part and parcel hereof; also the fact that since Socrates' time, the most celebrated Grecian scholars lived in celibacy. (Athen., XIII, 6 seq.; Plin., H. N., XXXV, 10.) Compare Theophrast in Hieronym. adv. Jovin, I, 47, and Antipater, in Stobæus, Serm., LXVII, 25.
[250-6] In modern Italy, the monstrosity known as cicisbeism had not assumed any great proportions before the 17th century, in consequence of the bad custom which permitted no woman to appear in public without such attendant, and ridiculed the husband for accompanying his own. In the time of the republics, the conventual seclusion of girls and the duenna system were not yet customary. (Sismondi, Gesch. der Italiennischen Republiken, XVI, 251, ff., 498, ff.) Adultery punished with death in many cities of medieval Italy: for instance, the Jus Municipale Vicentinum, 135. Concerning the Spanish cicisbeos, who evince as much shamelessness as fidelity, see Townsend, Journey, II, 142, ff. Bourgoing, Tableau, II, 308, ff. The so-called cortejos are generally young clerics or young officers.
[250-7] A young American woman says to Mrs. Butler: "We enjoy ourselves before marriage, but in your country girls marry to obtain a greater degree of freedom, and indulge in the pleasures and dissipations of society." While the young girls are always to be met with in the streets, wives are to be found always in the kitchen. (Mrs. Butler, American Journal, II, 183.) Compare Beaumont, Marie ou l'Esclavage aux États-Unis, I, 25 ff. 349. The opposite extreme in Italy, where, therefore, too favorable an inference should not be drawn from the small number of illegitimate births. Morally considered, one act of adultery outweighs 10 stupra! Even in the age of the renaissance,[TN 97] the free intercourse of young girls in England and the Netherlands made a favorable impression on Italian travelers; Bandello, Nov., II, 42; IV, 27.
Similar contrast in antiquity between Ionian and Dorian women. Wives were more rigidly excluded from entering gymnasia for males in Sparta than young girls. (Pausan.,[TN 98] V, 6, 5; VI, 20, 6; Plato, De Legg., VII, 805; Xenoph., De Rep. Laced., I.) Compare K. O. Müller, Dorier, II, 276 ff.
[250-8] Plato, De Legg., VI, 774, and Aristotle, Polit., II, 6; V, 9, 6; VI, 2, 12, complain of the too great supremacy of women in their day. Colossal land ownership of Lacedemonian women. (Aristot., Polit., II, 6, 11.) And yet even Plato advises that women be allowed to participate in the gymnasia, in the assemblies and to hold public office, etc. They were indeed different from men, but not as regards those qualities which fit for ruling. (De Rep., V, 451 ff.; De Legg., VI, 780; VII, 806.) That the Roman courtesans wore the male toga and were therefore called togatæ. Horat., Serm., I, 2, 63 ff., 80 ff.; Martial, VI, 64, recalls certain caricatures of very recent times; for instance, Bakunius' demand that both sexes should wear the same kind of dress. (R. Meyer, Emancipationskampf des 4 Standes, I, 43.) Later, concerning wifish men, see Apuleius, Metam., VIII; Salvian, Gubern. Dei VII. We are led to a related subject in noticing that in England of persons charged with serious crimes there were 10 women to 30 men; in Russia only 10 women to 81 men. (v. Oettingen, 758.) As Riehl remarks, Famille 15, the undeniable consensus gentium, that the costume of men should differ from that of women, is an equally undeniable protest against this species of emancipation. I would add that, as among ourselves in the earliest years of childhood, so also among lowly civilized peoples, the difference in costumes of the sexes is least apparent. (Tacit., Germ., 17; Plan. Carpin., Voyage en Tartarie; Add. éd., Bergeron, art. 2.) Even the physical difference is smaller there (Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, I, 76), especially in the size of the pelvis. (Peschel, Völkerkunde, 81, 86.)
[250-9] Even Plato complains of the unnatural relations of the sexes to one another, and would instead have the unions of couples of short duration introduced, and complete community of children under the direction of the state. (De Rep., V.) The Stoic Chrysippos approves the procreation of children by parent and child, brother and sister. (Diog. Laert., VII. 188.) In the time of Epictetus (Fr. 53, ed. Duebner), the Roman women liked to read Plato's republic, because in his community of wives they found an excuse for their own course. The Anabaptists appealed to Christ's saying that he who would not lose what he loved could not be his disciple. Thus the women should sacrifice their honor and suffer shame for Christ's sake. Publicans and prostitutes were fitter for heaven than honorable wives, etc. (Hagen, Deutschlands Verhältnisse im Reformationszeitalter, III, 221.)