dence; for the tendency of the later law, as already hinted, was
to reduce the power of the guardian to a nullity, while the form of
marriage in fashion conferred on the husband no compensating
superiority."

These were the final conditions for the Roman, whose power, sapped by
long excesses, was even then trembling to its fall. Already the
barbarians threatened them, and at various points had penetrated the
Empire, showing to the amazed Romans morals absolutely opposed to their
own. The German races contented themselves with one wife; and Tacitus
wrote of them: "Their marriages are very strict. No one laughs at vice,
nor is immorality regarded as a sign of good breeding. The young men
marry late,--they marry equal in years and in health, and the strength
of the parent is transmitted to the children."

This has a rosier aspect than facts warrant. For the Germans, as for
other barbarians of that epoch, the patriarchal family was the social
order, and the head of the family the lord of the community. Wives,
daughters, and daughters-in-law were excluded from leadership, though in
spite of this there is record of a woman as being occasionally at the
head of a tribe,--a circumstance chronicled by Tacitus with much
disgust.

While from the West this gigantic wave of powerful but uncultured life
was flowing in, from the East had come another. Early Christianity had
already established itself, and its ascetic teachings made another
element in the contradictions of the time. Up to this date slavery had
been the foundation of society, and any amelioration in the condition of
women had applied only to the patrician class. The Carpenter of Nazareth
set his seal upon the sacredness of labor, and taught first not only the
rights but the immeasurable value of even the weakest human soul. Women
were ardent converts to the new gospel. Hoping with all the wretched for
redemption and deliverance from present evils, they became eager and
devoted adherents. Their missionary zeal was a powerful agent in the
early days of Christianity. "In the first enthusiasm of the Christian
movement," says Principal Donaldson, in his notable article on "Women
among the Early Christians," in the "Fortnightly Review," "women were
allowed to do whatever they were fitted to do."

All this within a few generations came to an end. Widows of sixty and
over retained the power which had been given, and a new order
arose,--deaconesses who were not allowed marria