381.)

Another relic of declining matriarchy was the (from the Roman
standpoint) almost inexplicable respect of the Germans for the female
sex. Young girls of noble family were considered the safest bonds to
secure the keeping of contracts with Germans. In battle, nothing
stimulated their courage so much as the horrible thought that their
wives and daughters might be captured and carried into slavery. A woman
was to them something holy and prophetical, and they listened to her
advice in the most important matters. Veleda, the Bructerian priestess
on the river Lippe, was the soul of the insurrection of the Batavians,
in which Civilis at the head of German and Belgian tribes shook the
foundations of Roman rule in Gaul. The women held undisputed sway in the
house. If we may believe Tacitus, they, together with the old men and
children, had to do all the work, for the men went hunting, drank and
loafed. But as Tacitus does not say who cultivated the fields, and as
according to his explicit statement the slaves paid only tithes, but did
not work under compulsion, it seems that the adult men would have had to
do what little agricultural work was required.

The form of marriage, as stated above, was the pairing family in gradual
transition to monogamy. It was not yet strict monogamy, for polygamy was
permitted for the wealthy. Chasteness of the girls was in general
carefully maintained, different from the custom of the Celts. Tacitus
speaks with special ardor of the sacredness of the matrimonial bond
among the Germans. Adultery of the woman is alone quoted by him as a
reason for a divorce. But his treatment of this subject leaves many a
flaw and besides, it too openly holds up the mirror of virtue to the
dissipated Romans. So much is certain: Granted that the Germans were
such exceptional models of virtue in their forests, it required only a
short contact with the outer world to bring them down to the level of
the other average Europeans. In the whirl of Roman life the last trace
of pure morals disappeared even faster than the German language. Just
read Gregorius of Tours. It is obvious that in the primeval forests of
Germany no such hyper-refined voluptuousness could exist as in Rome.
That implies fully enough superiority of the Germans over the Roman
world, and there is no necessity for ascribing to them a moderation and
chastity that have never been the qualities of any nation as a whole.

A result of gentile law is the