cribed in eastern Germanic law, and the low status of
woman among the Teutons of the early times is sufficiently indicated by
the established and quasi-legalized right and prerogative of the
husband, as the owner of the female chattel, to bequeath, give, sell, or
hire her person or services to strangers, guests, or friends; or even to
kill her if she committed adultery, or if want and distress made such a
course expedient.

We must admit the harshness and cruelty to which woman, according to the
most ancient conscience of the Teutonic race, could lawfully be
subjected. Evidences that her status was outside of the pale of right
and law is manifest in all historical proofs. Traces of the old status
still abound. One lies in the present refinement of woman's actual
position a refinement which cannot obscure its real origin from the
student of culture and civilization.

It is certain that the prehistoric Germanic community began with the
communal use of women for pleasure or profit. This common use could be
broken and suppressed only by marriage by capture. If the man wished to
have exclusive possession of a wife, he had to procure her from outside
his own community. Besides this exogamic marriage, an endogamic marriage
was later recognized as conferring title, on the condition that the man
reconciled the woman's blood relatives by the payment of a definite
compensation. This system of marriage by capture survived the Migration
period, and was found in Sweden even in the early Middle Ages.

Marriage by treaty also existed even in prehistoric times. This compact
(_Gifta_) is always between the blood relatives of the bride and the
bridegroom. It is a presentation, a giving away (_Verschenkung_) of the
bride. The parent or guardian gives her away, an act which requires no
consent of the bride, but only a counter gift, or rather purchase money,
from the bridegroom. Thus a kind of purchase, the symbolic pursuit of
the bride (_Brautlauf_) as an imitation of the ancient marriage by
capture, and the technical consummation of marriage (_Beilager_), for
which the man, however, owes her a gift (_Morgengabe_), are the phases
of marriage.

Polygamy is the rule at first. The northern Teutons, especially the
Scandinavians, practised an unmitigated polygamy down to a very late
period, and only yielded after a most persistent struggle with the
ethics of Christianity. As late as the eighth century the bitter
accusations of the churchmen