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