FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>   >|  
tingale would there be in personal subjection to somebody. Any man of legal age would be recognized as a fit custodian for them, but there must be a man. With some variation of details at different periods, the same system prevailed essentially at Rome, down to the time when Rome became Christian. Those who wish for particulars will find them in an admirable chapter (the fifth) of Maine's "Ancient Law." At one time the husband was held to possess the _patria potestas_, or paternal power, in its full force. By law "the woman passed _in manum viri_, that is, she became the daughter of her husband." All she had became his, and after his death she was retained in the same strict tutelage by any guardians his will might appoint. Afterwards, to soften this rigid bond, the woman was regarded in law as being temporarily deposited by her family with her husband; the family appointed guardians over her; and thus, between the two tyrannies, she won a sort of independence. Then came Christianity, and swept away the merely parental authority for married women, concentrating all upon the husband. Hence our legislation bears the mark of a double origin, and woman is half recognized as an equal and half as a slave. It is necessary to remember, therefore, that all the relation of subjection in marriage is merely the residue of an unnatural system, of which all else is long since outgrown. It would have seemed to an ancient Roman a matter of course that a woman should, all her life long, obey the guardians set over her person. It still seems to many people a matter of course that she should obey her husband. To others among us, on the contrary, both these theories of obedience seem barbarous, and the one is merely a relic of the other. We cannot disregard the history of the Theory of Tutelage. If we could believe that a chrysalis is always a chrysalis, and a butterfly always a butterfly, we could easily leave each to its appropriate sphere; but when we see the chrysalis open, and the butterfly come half out of it, we know that sooner or later it must spread wings, and fly. The theory of tutelage implies the chrysalis. Woman is the butterfly. Sooner or later she will be wholly out. TWO AND TWO A young man of very good brains was telling me, the other day, his dreams of his future wife. Rattling on, more in joke than in earnest, he said, "She must be perfectly ignorant, and a bigot: she must know nothing, and believe ever
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

husband

 
butterfly
 

chrysalis

 

guardians

 
matter
 

family

 

tutelage

 
recognized
 

system

 

subjection


contrary

 

unnatural

 

barbarous

 

theories

 

obedience

 
people
 

ignorant

 

perfectly

 

ancient

 

outgrown


person
 

Theory

 

sooner

 
brains
 

telling

 

residue

 

spread

 

theory

 

implies

 

wholly


earnest

 

Tutelage

 

disregard

 

history

 

Sooner

 
Rattling
 
sphere
 

dreams

 
easily
 

future


possess

 

patria

 
potestas
 
Ancient
 
chapter
 

paternal

 
daughter
 
passed
 
admirable
 

custodian