il she
was twenty-one--unless, on reaching the age of sixteen, she availed
herself of her right to "sue out her livery" by the payment of a
half-year's income of her estate. Moreover, he was entitled to dispose
of her in marriage to any person of rank equal to her own. In case the
young lady did not approve of the selection made for her, and rejected
her guardian's choice or married without his consent, she had to
forfeit to him a sum of money equal to what was called the value of
her marriage--a sum equal to what the lord might have expected to
receive if the marriage as planned by him had taken place. During her
wardship the lord had the right to her land, and might assign or sell
his guardianship over her. These rights which the lord held over
the person and possessions of his ward applied, in the later feudal
period, equally to male and female.

Such was the relationship of the ward to her lord, and the same system
of knight service which gave him these rights in orphaned minors gave
him, as well, the right to collect a fee upon the marriage of the
daughters of any of his tenants. Such a system, while it deprived the
young woman of absolute freedom in her selection of a husband, did
not of necessity work great hardship, as each fair young woman had her
knight dedicated to her by the solemn vows of chivalry, from whom her
troth, once given, was not apt to be easily wrested. Upon the merits
of the system itself we are not called upon to pass judgment; but
certainly chivalry, which was its finest product, was responsible
for the introduction into the English character of splendid ideals of
womanhood, which found expression in a deference amounting almost to
worship.

Yet the picture has a reverse side as well, and it is only by
considering both aspects of the age that its real meaning as regards
its effect upon the womanhood of the time becomes clear. This other
side of chivalry is well expressed by Freeman, than whom no one is
better qualified to speak. He says: "The chivalrous spirit is, above
all things, a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless
fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a
certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any degree of
scorn or cruelty.... Chivalry is short in its morals very much what
feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations,
obligations devised in the interest of an exclusive class, for the
more homely duties of an hone