Woman, Church & State

192

See Reeves. —History of English Law.

193

Draper. —Conflict of Science and Religion.

194

Reeves.

195

Declaration of judges in the famous case of Evans and Ascuith. Vaughn said in a later case of the same kind, “If Canon Law be made part of the law of this land, then it is as much a law of the land and as well, and by the same authority as any other part of the law of the land.”

196

Gibson was archdeacon of Surrey, Rector of Lambeth, and Chaplain of his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Primate of all England and Metropolitan) to whom the Jurus was dedicated. The work said: “The foreign is what we commonly call the body of Canon Law, consisting of the Canons of Councils, Decrees of Popes and the like, which obtained in England by virtue of their own authority (in like manner as they did in other parts of the Western Church), till the time of the Reformation, and from that time have continued upon the foot of consent, usage and custom. For which distinction we have no less warrant than an act of Parliament, made at the very time when those foreign laws were declared to be no longer binding by their own authority… We have a plain declaration that foreign laws became part of the law of England by long use and consent.” Gibson. —Codex Jurus Ecclesiasticum Anglican.

197

English Common Law Reports, Hill vs. Gould, Vaughn, p. 327, says: “What ever is declared by an Act of Parliament to be against God’s law must be so admitted by us, because it is so declared by an Act of Parliament.”

198

Under Catholic form the bride promises to consecrate her body to the marital rite.

199

Chiniquy. —The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional.

200

“The clergy formerly, and to this very day, declare those women evil who desire to limit self-indulgence and procreation.”

201

See Lecky. —Hist. European Morals.

202

In a sermon laudatory of the preacher’s office, delivered in the May Memorial Unitarian Church, in Syracuse, N.Y., Sunday, Nov. 27, 1887, Rev. Mr. Calthrop, the pastor, said: “Noble words are your chief weapons of offense and defense. But remember it is not you that speak when you utter them, but the Holy Ghost.” From Report of Sermon, published in the “Daily Standard,” November 28th.

203

Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great institution, Common Law, can do so most efficiently by studying Canon Law in regard to married women. Commentaries.

204

Distinction of class appears most prominently in all the criminal laws for which the clergy are responsible. It was for the man of low estate, the slave, and for women, that the greatest atrocities were reserved. If the thief was a free woman she was to be thrown down a precipice or drowned (a precedent without doubt for dragging a witch through a pond). If the thief was a female slave, and had stolen from any but her own lord, eighty female slaves were to attend, each bearing a log of wood to pile the fire and burn the offender to death. Pike. —Hist. of Crime in England, 49-51.

205

A correspondent of “The London Times” writes from Rome that he has not heard a single doubt expressed as to the paternity of the Countess Lambertini, and the line adopted by the Antonelli heirs tacitly confirms it. They strenuously oppose the production of any of the evidence the plaintiff has offered. They object to the depositions of the witnesses being heard and tested, and they have declared their intention of impugning as forgeries the documentary proofs tendered. These documents consist of some letters written by Antonietta Marconi to the Archpriest Vendetta, and particularly one dated April 1, 1857, wherein, asking him to prepare a draught of a letter to the Cardinal, she says that “Giacomo” does not send her money, although he knows that he has a daughter to support, and that Loretina is a cause of great expense. “Write to him forcibly,” she says, “or I shall do something disagreeable.” The extent of the scandal in Rome does not consist so much in the fact of a Cardinal in Antonelli’s position having had one or more children, as in the law-suit which has brought all the intimate details connected with the affair before the public. Antonelli was to all intents and purposes a layman, filling one of those civil departments of an ecclesiastical temporal Government to qualify for which it was indispensably requisite to assume the ecclesiastical habit. He accepted early in life those obligations without which no career would have been open to him, and, like many others, he regarded them as mere matters of form, for under the imperturbable mask of the ecclesiastical diplomat beat a heart filled with the warmest domestic affections and instincts; and how strong those feelings were in him was fully demonstrated in his will, and is clearly shown in every incident of the story now revealed.

Dame Gervasi has been subjected to a rigid cross-examination by the counsel of the brothers Antonelli. The proceedings were conducted with closed doors, but a Roman correspondent of “The Daily News” seems in some manner to have wormed out the essential facts. When the mysterious “foreign young lady” went to lodge at Dame Gervasi’s, Cardinal Antonelli – so the gossip runs – paid several visits to his protege. “I remember,” says the Dame, “that when I went to open the door to them I held in my hand a bowl of beef tea, which I was taking to the patient. Dr. Lucchini was the first to enter, and I soon recognized the second visitor to be Cardinal Antonelli, who wore a long redingote and a tall hat. He took the bowl, which I held in my hand. ‘This is for the patient,’ he said inquiringly, but before I had time to reply he had swallowed part of its contents.” Dame Gervasi then proceeded to relate how Dr. Lucchini left the Cardinal alone with the foreign young lady. The witness put her ear to the keyhole, and heard distinctly the sound of kisses alternating, with sobs between the two. His Eminence, to console the patient, told her he had taken every precaution against the matter becoming known. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “nobody will be a bit the wiser. You will be able to marry. As for the baby, that’s my affair. I will take care of her, and I swear to you that she will never know the name of her mother.” Dame Gervasi gave the names of the persons who had come to her on behalf of the brothers Antonelli, and these emissaries, she said, tried to make her disclose all she knew, and promised her large sums of money to bind her to silence as to the clandestine part played by Signora Marconi, and as to the Cardinal’s relations with the “foreign lady.” —N.Y. Tribune, July 5, 1878.

206

See Reeves. —Early English Law.

207

Hollingshed’s Chronicles.

The foundation of old common law seems traceable to Martia, the widow of Guilliame, left regent of her husband’s kingdom, comprising a part of Britain, two hundred years prior to the christian era. This queen directed her attention to framing a system of laws which acquired for her the surname of “Proba,” or “The Just.” They were evidently one of the three parts under which the common law is divided, although under canon law the entire property of the wife became that of the husband upon marriage.

208

In England, in 1538, or even earlier, it was calculated that besides the tithes, one-third of the kingdom was ecclesiastical property, and that these vast possessions were devoted to the support of a body of men who found their whole serious occupation in destroying the virtue of women. Lea. —Sacerdotal Celibacy.

209

The pagan laws during the Empire had been continually repealing the old disabilities of women; and the legislative movement in their favor continued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian, and appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. But, in the whole feudal legislation, women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the Pagan Empire. In addition to the personal restrictions which grew necessarily out of the Catholic Christian doctrines concerning divorce, and the subordination of the weaker sex, we find numerous and stringent enactments, which rendered it impossible for women to succeed to any considerable amount of property, and which almost reduced them to the alternative of marriage or a nunnery. The complete inferiority of the sex was continually maintained by law; and that generous public opinion which in Rome had frequently revolted against the injustice done to girls, in depriving them of the greater part of the inheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared. Wherever the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and of wives, and a state of public opinion which has been formed and regulated by these laws; nor was any serious attempt made to abolish them till the close of the last century. The French Revolutionists, though rejecting the proposal of Sieyes and Condorcet to accord political emancipation to women, established at least an equal succession of sons and daughters, and thus initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion, which sooner or later must traverse the world. Lecky. —Hist. Morals, Vol. II, pp. 357-359.

210

Sheldon Amos. —Science of Law.

211

Ibid.

212

Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man’s rights. Society exists for man only; for women merely as they are represented by some man; are in the mundt or keeping of some man. —Descriptive Sociology of England.

213

This slavish condition of the wife yet prevails in over one-half the states of the union.

214

. The relations in respect to property which exist between husband and wife in England, is solely grounded on her not being assumed at common law to have sufficient command of her purse or of her future actions wherewith to procure the materials for making a contract. The legal presumption then is, that she did not intend to make one, and therefore the allegation that she did make a contract would simply on the face of it be a fraud. Amos. —Science of Law.

215

The jurisconsults had evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle to the code of equity. The situation of the Roman woman, whether married or single, became one of great personal and proprietary independence; but Christianity tended somewhat from the very first to narrow this remarkable liberty. The prevailing state of religious sentiment may explain why modern jurisprudence has adopted those rules concerning the position of woman, which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilization. No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman law. Canon law has deeply injured civilization. – Sir Henry Maine.

216

Under the Commonwealth, society assumed a new and stern aspect. Women were in disgrace; it was everywhere declared from the pulpit that woman caused man’s expulsion from Paradise, and ought to be shunned by Christians as one of the greatest temptations of Satan. “Man,” said they, “is conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity; it was his complacency to woman that caused his first debasement; let man not therefore glory in his shame; let him not worship the fountain of his corruption.” Learning and accomplishments were alike discouraged, and women confined to a knowledge of cooking, family medicines and the unintelligible theological discussions of the day. Lydia Maria Child. —History of Woman.

217

Many women made their entrance into literature through the medium of a cook book, thus virtually apologizing for the use of a pen.

218

The slavish superstition under which church teaching still keeps the minds of men was no less shown by the thousands who visited the St. Anne relic in the United States. Nor are Protestants but little less under the same superstition, accepting the teaching of the church without investigation. An educated Protestant girl, upon her return from Europe, recently, gravely declared that during her absence she had seen the spear which pierced the Saviour’s side.

219

The most interesting of all to Americans is the copy of the American Constitution that President Cleveland sent to the Vatican by Cardinal Gibbons. It is printed on vellum in richly illuminated English characters, and bound in white and red. It is enclosed in a case of purple plush with gold hinges, and bears this autographic inscription by President Cleveland:

“Presented to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII., as an expression of congratulation on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee, with the profound regard of Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, through the courtesy of his Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.”

Washington, D.C.

Upon the next page, beneath an American eagle printed in gold, is this inscription:

“The Constitution of the United States. Adopted Sept. 17, 1787.”

The page bearing this inscription and all the fly leaves were of exquisite watered silk.

220

“Owing to the pope’s refusal to accept the gifts of the king and queen of Italy on the occasion of his jubilee, all the members of the House of Savoy, including the Duke d’Aosta and the Princess Clotilde, have omitted to send offerings. This is the fly in the jubilee ointment of Pope Leo XIII., and settles the question of concessions of temporal power. Nevertheless, the day is passed when the claim of ‘imprisonment in the Vatican’ will further avail the pope.”

221

When Linnaeus published his sexual system of plants, in the eighteenth century, he was ridiculed and shunned as one who had degraded nature.

222

In the dominion of the Count de Foix, the lord had right once in his lifetime to take, without payment, a certain quantity of goods from the stores of each tenant. Cesar Cantu. —Histoire Universelle.

223

Two women seized by German soldiers were covered with tar, rolled in feathers, and exhibited in the camp as a new species of bird.

224

Among the privileges always claimed, and frequently enforced by the feudalry, was the custom of the lord of the manor to lie the first night with the bride of his tenant. —Sketches of Feudalism, p. 109.

By the law of “Marquette” under the feudal system (which rested on personal vassalage), to the “lord of the soil” belonged the privilege of first entering the nuptial couch unless the husband had previously paid a small sum of money, or its equivalent, for the ransom of his bride; and we read that these feudal lords thought it was no worse thus to levy on a young bride than to demand half the wool of each flock of sheep. Article on Relation of the Sexes. – Westminster Review.

225

The custom of Borough-English is said to have arisen out of the Marchetta or plebeian’s first born son being considered his lord’s progeny. —Dr. Tusler.

226

“It is not very likely that Louis XIV thought the time would ever come when the peasant’s bride might not be claimed in the chamber of his seigneur on her bridal night. Those base laws, their revocation has been written in the blood of successive generations.”

227

See Feudal Dictionary.

228

The interests of ecclesiastics as feudal nobles were in some respects identical with those of the barons, but the clergy also constituted a party with interests of its own.

229

M. Gerun, as quoted by Grimm, gives curious information upon this subject.

230

Par example, dans quelques seigneuries, où le seigneur passent trois nuits avec les nouvelles marriees, il fut convenu qu’il n’en passant qu’une. Dans d’autres, ou le seigneur avant le premiere nuit seulment, on ne lui accordes plus qu’une heure.

231

Collins de Plancy.

232

Feudal Dictionary, p. 179.

233

Claiming the right of the first night with each new spouse. —Boems Decisions 297, I-17.

234

Raepsaet, p. 179.

235

The popes anciently had universal power over the pleasures of marriage. —Feudal Dictionary, 174.

236

In the transaction the alternative was with the husband; it was he who might submit, or pay the fine, as he preferred or could afford. Relation of the Sexes.– Westminster Review.

237

These (courts) powerfully assisted the seigneur to enforce his traditional privileges at the expense of the villeins. —H. S. Maine.

The courts of Bearn openly maintained that this right grew up naturally.

238

Sometimes the contumacious husband was harnessed by the side of a horse or an ox, compelled to do a brute’s work and to herd with the cattle.

239

He is followed by bursts of laughter, and the noisy rabble down to the lowest scullion give chase to the “cuckold.” —Michelet.

240

The oldest born of the peasant is accounted the son of his lord, for he, perchance it was, that begat him. When the guests have retired, the newly wedded husband shall permit his lord to enter the bed of his wife, unless he shall have redeemed her for five shillings and four pence. —Grimm.

241

Droit de cuissage c’est le droit de mettre une cuisse dans le lit d’une autre, ou de coucher avec le femme d’une vassal ou d’une serf.

So much scandal was caused that finally the archbishop of Bourges abolished this right in his diocese. —Feudal Dictionary.

242

A yoke of cattle and a measure of wheat was afterwards substituted for a money ransom, but even this redemption was in most cases entirely beyond the power of the serf.

Under the feudal system the lord of the manor held unlimited sway over his serfs. He farther possessed the so-called Jus Primae Noctis (Right of the First Night), which he could, however, relinquish in virtue of a certain payment, the name of which betrayed its nature. It has been latterly asserted that this right never existed, an assertion which to me appears entirely unfounded. It is clear the right was not a written one, that it was not summed up in paragraphs; it was the natural consequence of the dependent relationship, and required no registration in any book of law. If the female serf pleased the lord he enjoyed her, if not he let her alone. In Hungary, Transylvania, and the Danubian principalities, there was no written Jus Primae Noctis either, but one learns enough of this subject by inquiry of those who know the country and its inhabitants, as to the manners which prevail between the land owners and the female population. That imposts of this nature existed cannot be denied, and the names speak for themselves. August Bebel. —Woman in the Past, Present and Future.

243

In a parish outside Bourges the parson as being a lord especially claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband.

244

The infamous noble who accompanied a certain notorious actress to this country in the fall of 1886, possessed forty livings in his gift.

245

No greater proof of this statement is needed than the rapidity with which the disease brought by the sailors of Columbus spread over Europe; infecting the king on his throne, the peasant in the field, the priest at the altar, the monk and nun in the cloister.

246

In deference to that public sentiment which required the ruler to pose before the world as a libertine, Friedrich Wilhelm I., of Prussia (1713-1740), although old and in feeble health, kept up the pretense of a liason with the wife of one of his generals, the intimacy consisting of an hour’s daily walk in the castle yard. —August Bebel.

247

Down to Pius IX. See The Woman, the Priest and the Confessional.

248

When the Emperor Charles II entered Bourges, he was saluted by a deputation of perfectly naked women. At the entrance of King Ladislaus into Vienna, 1452, the municipal government sent a deputation of public women to meet him the beauty of whose forms was rather enhanced than concealed by their covering of gauze. Such cases were by no means unusual. —Woman in the Past, Present and Future.

249

Memoirs of the Princess of Bareith, a sister of Frederick the Great.

250

In Russia the nobles have such rights by law over the women of their lands that the population scarcely resent the sale by auction of all the young peasants of their village. These nobles, a race once proud and mean, extravagant and covetous, full of vice and cunning, are said to be a class superior to the people. Yet they are working the ruin of their influence by multiplying in the masses the number of individuals, already very considerable, to whom they have transmitted their genius with their blood. —A. R. Craig, M.A.

251

London, February 1. – The Odessa correspondent of “The Daily News” says: Hunger typhus is spreading alarmingly. In large towns in this region all the hospitals are filled, and private buildings are being converted into hospitals. This is the state of affairs in Moskovskia and Viedomosti. A correspondent writing from Russia declares that the more fanatical and superstitious portion of the peasantry believe that Count Tolstoi is Antichrist, and decline to accept his bounty for fear they will thus commit their souls to perdition.

252

Two celebrated women, Augusta, of Koningsmark, and Madame Dudevant (George Sand), traced their descent to this king. – Letters to “New York Tribune.”

253