ir day, all counterpleas notwithstanding, resemble the
ethics of the patriarchs, of that far antiquity which regarded
marriage with a stranger as immoral, and allowed only of marriage
amongst kinsfolk. The families thus joined together became as one. Not
daring to scatter over the surrounding deserts, tilling only the
outskirts of a Merovingian palace or a monastery, they took shelter
every evening under the roof of a large homestead (_villa_). Thence
arose unpleasant points of analogy with the ancient _ergastulum_,
where the slaves of an estate were all crammed together. Many of these
communities lasted through and even beyond the Middle Ages. About the
results of such a system the lord would feel very little concern. To
his eyes but one family was visible in all this tribe, this multitude
of people "who rose and lay down together, ... who ate together of the
same bread, and drank out of the same mug."

Amidst such confusion the woman was not much regarded. Her place was
by no means lofty. If the virgin, the ideal woman, rose higher from
age to age, the real woman was held of little worth among these
boorish masses, in this medley of men and herds. Wretched was the doom
of a condition which could only change with the growth of separate
dwellings, when men at length took courage to live apart in hamlets,
or to build them huts in far-off forest-clearings, amidst the fruitful
fields they had gone out to cultivate. From the lonely hearth comes
the true family. It is the nest that forms the bird. Thenceforth they
were no more things, but men; for then also was the woman born.

* * * * *

It was a very touching moment, the day she entered _her own home_.
Then at last the poor wretch might become pure and holy. There, as she
sits spinning alone, while her goodman is in the forest, she may brood
on some thought and dream away. Her damp, ill-fastened cabin, through
which keeps whistling the winter wind, is still, by way of a
recompense, calm and silent. In it are sundry dim corners where the
housewife lodges her dreams.

And by this time she has some property, something of her own. The
_distaff_, the _bed_, and the _trunk_, are all she has, according to
the old song.[18] We may add a table, a seat, perhaps two stools. A
poor dwelling and very bare; but then it is furnished with a living
soul! The fire cheers her, the blessed box-twigs guard her bed,
accompanied now and again by a pretty bunch