ys asserted
special jurisdiction. By the middle of the twelfth century it was law in
England that to it belonged this prerogative. The ecclesiastical court,
for example, pronounced in a given case whether there had been a valid
marriage or not; the temporal court took this decision as one of the
bases for determining a matter of inheritance, whether a woman was
entitled to dower, and the like. The general precepts laid down by canon
law in the case of a wife have already been noted. These rules need now
to be supplemented by an account of the position of women in marriage
under the common law.

Under the older common law the husband was very much lord of all he
surveyed and even more. An old enactment thus describes a husband's
duty[395]: "He shall treat and _govern_ the aforesaid A well and
decently, and shall not inflict nor cause to be inflicted any injury
upon the aforesaid A except in so far as he may lawfully and reasonably
do so in accordance with _the right of a husband to correct and chastise
his wife_." Blackstone, who wrote in 1763, has this to say on the
husband's power to chastise his wife: "The husband also, by the old law,
might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her
misbehaviour, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this
power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement, in the same
moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children,
for whom the master or parent is also liable in some cases to answer.
But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and
the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife _aliter
quam ad, virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae, licite
et rationabiliter pertinet_.[396] The civil law gave the husband the
same, or a larger, authority over his wife; allowing him for some
misdemeanours _flagellis et fustibus acriter verberare uxorem_ [to give
his wife a severe beating with whips and clubs]; for others, only
_modicam castigationem adhibere_ [to apply moderate correction]. But
with us in the politer reign of Charles the Second, this power of
correction began to be doubted; and a wife may now have security of the
peace against her husband, or, in return, a husband against his wife.
Yet the lower rank of people, who were always fond of the old common
law, still claim and exert their ancient privilege; and the courts of
law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of