status of women is their position with respect to men in a society in
which men hold the deciding voice. Men bear power and responsibility.
Women are the coadjutors, with more or less esteem, honor, cooperative
function, and joint authority. There has never until modern times been a
law of the state which forbade a man to take a second wife with the
first. A man could not commit adultery because he was not bound, by law
or mores, to his wife as she was to him. A man and woman marry
themselves and lead conjugal life in a world of their own. Church and
state would be equally powerless to marry them. The church may "bless"
their union. The state may define and enforce the civil and property
rights of themselves or their children. It cannot enforce conjugal
rights. Therefore it cannot divorce two spouses. They divorce
themselves. The state can say what civil and property right shall be
affected by the divorce, and how the force of the state shall enforce
the consequences. The marriage relation is domestic and private, where
the wills of the individuals prevail and where the police cannot act.
The Christian church, about the thirteenth century, introduced a
marriage ritual in which the spouses promised exclusive fidelity, the
man as much as the woman. As fast and as far as church marriage was
introduced, the promise set the idea of marriage. If either broke the
promise, he or she was liable to church censure and penance. In England
the first civil law against bigamy was I James I, chapter 11. Never
until 1563 (Council of Trent) was any ecclesiastical act necessary to
the validity of a marriage even in the forum of the church. Marriage was
in the mores. The blessing of the church was edifying and contributory.
It was not essential. Marriage was popular and belonged to the family.
In the ancient nations sacrifices were made for good fortune in wedlock.
In the Middle Ages Christian priests blessed marriages which had been
concluded by laymen and had already been consummated. The relation of
husband and wife varied, at that time, in the villages of Germany or
northern France of the same nationality. Until modern times concubinage
has existed as a recognized institution. It was an inferior form of
marriage, in which the woman did not take the rank of her husband, and
her children did not inherit his rank or property, but her status was
permanent and defined. Sometimes it was exclusive. Then again slaves
have been at the mercy of a