Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn
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. —
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.
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Two celebrated women, Augusta, of Koningsmark, and Madame Dudevant (George Sand), traced their descent to this king. – Letters to “New York Tribune.”
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Adam Badeau. —
254
The at one time famous “Alexandra Limp,” affecting the princess of Wales, and copied in walk by ultra-fashionable women, was said to be due to the effects of an infamous disease contracted by the princess from her husband.
255
Rev. Dr. Varley. – “New York Sun,” July, 1885.
256
At the beginning of the Christian era, Corinth possessed a thousand women who were devoted to the service of its idol, the Corinthian Venus. “To Corinthianize” came to express the utmost lewdness, but Corinth, as sunken as she was in sensual pleasure, was not under the pale of Christianity. She was a heathen city, outside of that light which, coming into the world, is held to enlighten every man that accepts it.
257
Les Cuisiniers et les marmitons de l’archeveques de Vienne avaient impose un tribut sur les mariages; on croit que certains feuditaires exigeaient un droit obscene de leur vassaux qui se mariaient, quel fut transforme ensuite en droit de
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There are those who to enrich themselves would not only rob their sisters of their portion, but would sell for money the honor of those who bear their name. The authority of the son during the feudal period was so absolute that the father and mother themselves often winked at this hideous traffic. —
260
Unless an heiress, woman possessed no social importance; unless an inmate of a religious house no religious position. There are some records of her in this last position, showing what constant effort and strength of intellect were demanded from her to thwart the machinations of abbots and monks. —
261
See page 193. —
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Gratain, Canon for Spain in 633, says the nuptial robe was garnished with white and purple ribbons as a sign of the continence to which young married people devoted themselves for a time.
264
Eight young men, living in the vicinity of North Rose, Wayne County, have been held to await the action of the grand jury for rioting. A young married couple named Garlic were about to retire for the night when they were startled by the appearance of a party of men in the yard. The party immediately commenced beating on pans, discharging guns and pistols, pounding with clubs, screaming and kicking at the doors of the house. The bride and groom were terrified, but finally the groom mustered enough courage to demand what the men wanted there. Shouts of “Give us lots of cider or we’ll horn you to death,” were the answers. An attempt was made to break in a rear door of the house. The bride and groom and John Wager, who was also present in the house, braced the doors from the inside to prevent a forcible entrance, and the inmates had to defend the property nearly all night. The horning party, at last weary of calling for cider, left the premises giving an extra strong fusillade of firearms and a series of yells as they departed. The eight young men were arrested a few days later on suspicion of being in the horning party. —
265
Whenever we discover symbolized forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people employing them there were corresponding realities. McLennon. —
266
He was thrown into the moat to cool his ardor, pelted with stones, derided as a proud and envious wretch. —
267
The maids redeeme their virginities with a certain piece of money, and by that Terme their lands are held to this day. Heywoode. —
268
Margaret was canonized in 1251, and made the Patron Saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up in the famous practice until a late date. One of the earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as “Earl Brant,” in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right, the literal translation of
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The feeling is common in the north that a laird, or chieftain, getting a vassal’s or clansmen’s wife or daughter with child, is doing her a great honor. Burke. —
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In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man’s heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally. Michelet. —
272
Among the rights asserted by the Protestant clergy in the middle ages, and which caused much dispute, was exemption from lay jurisdiction even in cases of felony.
From the throne downward every secular office was dependent upon the church. Froude. —
273
Among these de coucher avec leur femmes, d’enlever les premices de leurs filles.
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In Babylon every young woman was obliged once in her life to offer her person for sale, nor was she permitted to leave the temple, where she sat with a cord about her waist, until some stranger taking it in hand led her away. The money thus obtained passed into the treasury of the temple as her “purchase money, or redemption, releasing her from farther prostitution, and permitting her marriage, which was forbidden until such sale had been consummated.”
276
Although a similar custom is said to have prevailed in India under Brahaminical rule, it must be remembered that wherever found it is an accompaniment of the Patriarchate, and under some form of religion where the feminine is no longer considered a portion of the divinity, or woman allowed in the priesthood.
277
It has been too readily believed that the wrong was formal, not real. But the price laid down in certain countries exceeded the means of almost every peasant. In Scotland, for instance, the demand