ion, this liberty on his part may have been counter-balanced,
oftener than we think, by corresponding liberty on the wife's part.
Beyond doubt this has been so in India, where it is effected by means
of marriage settlements. In Bengal, for instance, a bridegroom is
sometimes compelled to execute a deed in which he stipulates never to
scold his wife, the penalty being a divorce; and deeds are not unknown
empowering the wife to get a divorce if her husband ever so much as
disagree with her.[229] This is incompatibility of temper with a
vengeance! Even the fairy of Llyn Nelferch was willing to put up with
two disagreements; and no taboo in story has gone, or could go, further.

Moreover, some of the taboos are such as the etiquette of various
peoples would entirely approve, though breaches of them might not be
visited so severely as in the tales. I have already pointed out that the
Lady of the Van Pool would have had a legal remedy for blows without
cause. The romance lies in the wide interpretation she gave to the
blows, and their disproportionate punishment. These transfer the
hearer's sympathies from the wife to the husband. Precisely parallel
seems to be the injunction laid upon Hohodemi, by Toyotamahime, daughter
of the Sea-god. I know not what may be the rule in Japan; but it is
probably not different from that which obtains in China. There, as we
learn from the Li Ki, one of the Confucian classics, a wife in
Toyotamahime's condition would, even among the poor, be placed in a
separate apartment; and her husband, though it would be his duty to send
twice a day to ask after her, would not see her, nor apparently enter
her room until the child was presented to him to be named. Curiously
enough the prohibition in the Japanese tale is identical with that
imposed by Pressina, herself a water-fay, the mother of Melusina,
according to the romance of Jean d'Arras written at the end of the
fourteenth century. Melusina and the Esthonian mermaid laid down another
rule: they demanded a recurring period during which they would be free
from marital intrusion. India is not Europe; but it cannot be thought
quite irrelevant to observe that much more than this is commonly secured
to a bride in many parts of India. For by the marriage settlement it is
expressly agreed that she is to go to her father's house as often as she
likes; and if her husband object, she is empowered in the deed to bring
an action against him for false imprisonment