THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 647 



the preservation of the family against the disruptive tendencies of 

 internal strife. Polygyny partially and externally secures this by 

 placing the control of the family in the hands of a recognized head, 

 and that head the member of the household indisputably the best able 

 to hold his position against the other members. But the elements of 

 discord and strife were left in the family, in the jealousies of the sev- 

 eral wives, and in the conflicting claims of their children. When 

 death removed the household despot, if not before, these elements of 

 disintegration worked against the family structure. Rudimentary 

 monogamy was the attempt to settle by law the relative positions of 

 a man's several wives, placing one on a secure height above the others, 

 to insure a certain descent of title, property, and power to her chil- 

 dren. Roman law gives us the most perfect legal form of this transi- 

 tion stage toward pure monogamy. The Roman patrician was entitled 

 by law to three wives, but he could only have one of the highest kind. 

 This superior order of wife, whom the law protected against equal 

 rivals, must be of the same high birth as the husband, could alone 

 legitimatize his children to the extent of transmission of title and 

 estate (save as he exercised his legal power of adoption) ; and the mar- 

 riage ceremony, made binding by solemn religious rites, was annulled 

 only by death. The second grade of wife could be of inferior birth, 

 and was united to her noble husband mei-ely by a civil service, which 

 gave him full power over her, but which secured her legal protection 

 and support, and could be annulled by divorce. The third grade of 

 wifehood was one which gave perfect legal independence to the wo- 

 man, and also removed from her all legal protection. Simple announce- 

 ment of intention to assume such a relation was the only preliminary 

 needed for this union ; it could be dissolved by mutual consent. Ru- 

 dimentary monogamy, you observe, raised the standard of a life-long 

 union of one man with one woman, to beget, bear, and rear one set of 

 offspring. And the Roman law, though recognizing other unions as 

 legal, pushed them away as far as possible from this germinal seed of 

 perfect family unity. Thus the seed grew, and we come rapidly on the 

 to the last type of marriage, viz. : 



Pure monogamy. This form of sexual union recognizes no other 

 as legally admissible. Indulgence of passion there may be outside 

 this narrow bond of one man to one woman, but it is unlawful, and 

 its fruits have no legal place in the social order of the family. This 

 is the type dominant in our civilization, and we have seen how slowly 

 it has been built up, and for what high ends of government. 



The Legal Position of Married Women To-day in the 

 United States. Our laws are all founded on and modifications of 

 the " common law " of England, which was in turn, for the most part, 

 a gift from old Roman jurists to our civilization. This common law 

 exemplifies in every word the emphasis formerly placed on the au- 

 thority of recognized rulers, in general government and in domestic 



