., vol. i, p. 231. The very subordinate position of the
mediaeval German woman is set forth by Hagelstange, _Sueddeutsches
Bauernleben in Mittelalter_, 1898, pp. 70 et seq.

[321] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, p. 259; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities_, art. _Arrhae_. It would appear, however, that the
"bride-sale," of which Tacitus speaks, was not strictly the sale of a
chattel nor of a slave-girl, but the sale of the _mund_ or protectorship
over the girl. It is true the distinction may not always have been clear
to those who took part in the transaction. Similarly the Anglo-Saxon
betrothal was not so much a payment of the bride's price to her kinsmen,
although as a matter of fact, they might make a profit out of the
transaction, as a covenant stipulating for the bride's honorable treatment
as wife and widow. Reminiscences of this, remark Pollock and Maitland (op.
cit., vol. ii, p. 364), may be found in "that curious cabinet of
antiquities, the marriage ritual of the English Church."

[322] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 278-281, 386. The _Arrha_ crept into
Roman and Byzantine law during the sixth century.

[323] J. Wickham Legg, _Ecclesiological Essays_, p. 189. It may be added
that the idea of the subordination of the wife to the husband appeared in
the Christian Church at a somewhat early period, and no doubt
independently of Germanic influences; St. Augustine said (Sermo XXXVII,
cap. vi) that a good _materfamilias_ must not be ashamed to call herself
her husband's servant (_ancilla_).

[324] See, e.g., L. Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, Ch. IX.

[325] Howard, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 293 et seq.; Esmein, _op. cit._, vol.
i, pp. 25 et seq.; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian
Antiquities_ art. "Contract of Marriage."

[326] Any later changes in Catholic Canon law have merely been in the
direction of making matrimony still narrower and still more remote from
the practice of the world. By a papal decree of 1907, civil marriages and
marriages in non-Catholic places of worship are declared to be not only
sinful and unlawful (which they were before), but actually null and void.

[327] E.S.P. Haynes, _Our Divorce Law_, p. 3.

[328] It was the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, which made
ecclesiastical rites essential to binding marriage; but even then
fifty-six prelates voted against that decision.

[329] Esmein, op. cit., vol. i, p. 91.

[330] It is sometimes said that the Catholic C