RISE OF FATHERRIGHT 5 



comparatively few cases is anything like judicial inter- 

 ference invoked, such as we are accustomed to 

 associate with the term Divorce. The Semitic nations 

 are notorious for the frailty of the conjugal relation, 

 though probably they have not been laxer than many 

 others. Their ancient civilisations and ancient 

 barbarism alike have preserved evidence which goes 

 to show in the words of a recent writer " that the 

 primitive Semitic marriage-tie was an evanescent 

 bond." 1 The legislation in the book of Deuteronomy 

 and that of the Arabian prophet were framed under 

 patriarchal influence. Consequently they witness and 

 perpetuate the power of the husband to put away his 

 wife on the smallest pretext, or without any pretext 

 at all, but they have not taken equal care of the 

 wife's rights. Enough, however, remains in old Arab 

 literature and modern customs, and even in the pages 

 of the Old Testament itself, to render it probable that 

 originally these rights were correlative to those of the 

 husband. 



The late Professor Robertson Smith collected a 

 number of instances proving that the primitive Arabs 

 were matrilineal, and that a husband was little if any- 

 thing more than a temporary lover who could be 

 dismissed, or could depart, at pleasure. We may cite 

 two of these instances. " Ibn Batuta in the fourteenth 

 century of our era found that the women of Zebid 

 Were perfectly ready to marry strangers. The husband 

 might depart when he pleased, but his wife in that case 

 could never be induced to follow him. She bade him 

 a friendly adieu and took upon herself the whole 

 charge of any child of the marriage." He goes on to 



1 Barton, 45. 



