CHAPTER IV.
Woman in the Mediaeval Age.

1.—The Position of Women among the Germans.

The robust, physically healthy, coarse but unsophisticated peoples that during the first centuries after Christ came from the North and East, flooding like mighty ocean waves the enervated Roman empire in which Christianity had gradually come into power, vehemently resisted the ascetic teachings of the Christian preachers, who were obliged to make allowances for these healthy natures. The Romans were surprised to find that the customs of these peoples differed considerably from their own. Tacitus takes note of this fact in regard to the Germans, of whom he thus expresses his approval: “Their marriage laws are severe and none of their customs are more laudable than this one, for they are practically the only barbarians who content themselves with one wife. Among this numerous people one rarely hears of adultery, and when it does occur, it is promptly punished, the men themselves being permitted to inflict the punishment. Naked, her hair clipped, thus the man drives the adulteress out of the village before the eyes of her relatives, for a sin against virtue is not condoned. There nobody laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are not considered a sign of good breeding. The youths marry late; therefore they maintain their strength. The maidens, too, are not married off hastily, and they are of the same stature as the men, and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of equal age, equally strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is transmitted to the children.”

Evidently Tacitus depicted the matrimonial relations of the ancient Germans in a somewhat too rosy hue, to set them before the Romans as an example. They indeed severely punished the woman who committed adultery, but the punishment was not inflicted upon the man who committed adultery. At the time of Tacitus, the gens still flourished among the Germans. Tacitus, being accustomed to the more advanced Roman conditions that made the old gentile organization and its foundations seem strange and incomprehensible to him, wonderingly relates that among the Germans a mother’s brother regards his nephew as a son, and that some considered the bond of blood relation between an uncle on the mother’s side and his nephew as being even more sacred than the bond between father and son. For this reason, so he furthermore relates, when hostages were asked for, it was considered a stronger security when a man gave his sister’s son instead of his own. Upon this subject Engels remarks: “When the member of a gens gave his own son as a hostage and he was sacrificed by a breach of the agreement, it was the father’s own concern. But if his sister’s son had been sacrificed a sacred gentile right had been violated. The nearest gentile relation by duty bound to protect the boy or youth, had caused his death. He should either not have pledged him, or should have kept his agreement.”[30] Engels shows that in other respects among the Germans at the time of Tacitus, the matriarchate had already been replaced by the patriarchate. The children inherited from their father. In the absence of children, brothers and uncles on both the father’s and mother’s side were the lawful heirs. That the mother’s brother was admitted to a share in the inheritance, although inheritance was determined by descent on the father’s side, can be explained by the fact that the old law had but recently disappeared. Memories of the old law also caused that profound respect of the German for the female sex, which so greatly surprised Tacitus. He also observed that the courage of the men was kindled to the utmost by the women. The thought of seeing their women led into captivity and servitude was most terrible to the ancient Germans and impelled them to the utmost resistance. But the women also were animated by a spirit that greatly impressed the Romans. When Marius would not permit the captured Teuton women to become priestesses of Vesta (the goddess of virgin chastity) they committed suicide.

At the time of Tacitus the Germans possessed fixed abodes. There was an annual division of the soil, which was determined by lot, and the wood, the streams and the pasture-ground were considered common property. Their mode of life was extremely simple; their wealth consisted mainly of cattle; coarse woolen cloaks or the hides of animals constituted their clothing. Women and some men of rank wore linen under-garments. Metal tools and weapons were manufactured only by those tribes who lived in too remote parts for the importation of Roman products of industry. In minor matters decisions were rendered by the council of chiefs; in more important matters by the popular assembly. Originally the chiefs were elected, though usually from one particular family. But the transition to the patriarchal system favored the heredity of the position, and finally led to the formation of a hereditary nobility that later on developed into kingship. As in Greece and Rome, the German gens perished by the rise of private property, the development of industry and commerce, and intermarriage with members of foreign tribes and nations. The gens was replaced by the mark community, a democratic organization of free peasants that constituted a firm bulwark against the encroachments of church and nobility for many centuries, and did not quite disappear even then when the feudal state had come into power and the free peasants had been forced into a condition of servitude. The mark community was represented by the heads of the families. Wives, daughters and daughters-in-law were excluded from the council. The times had passed in which women conducted the affairs of the tribe—an incident which greatly amazed Tacitus, and which he describes with remarks of scorn. In the fifth century the Salic law repealed the right of inheritance of women to patrimonial estates.

Every male member of the mark community was entitled, upon marriage, to share in the common soil. Usually grandparents, parents and children lived under one roof in a household community, and so it frequently occurred that for the purpose of obtaining an additional share, a son who had not yet attained the marriageable age was joined in wedlock with some maiden of marriageable age by proxy, the father acting as husband in place of the son.[31] Newly married couples were given a cartload of beachwood and wood to build a log cabin. Upon the birth of a daughter, parents also received one cartload of wood; upon the birth of a son they received two. The female sex accordingly was considered worth only half as much as the male sex.

The marriage ceremony was simple. Religious rites were unknown. A mutual agreement was sufficient, and as soon as the couple had entered the nuptial bed, the marriage was contracted. Only in the ninth century that custom arose according to which a religious ceremony was necessary to legalize a marriage, and as late as the sixteenth century, marriage was made a sacrament of the Catholic Church by a decision of the council of Trent.