Married Women's Property in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Law and the Origin of the Common-Law Dower

Abstract

59°) gives dates as follows : The Salic law the oldest, then the Ripuarian law in the middle of the fifth century, the Bur- gundian in the sixth, Visigoth and Alemannian in seventh, and, under Charle- magne in the eighth and ninth, the Saxon and Thuringian.property lasted through all vicissitudes but in general the middle ages show a retrograde movementt until the tide again turned, and with the decay of feudalism, the rise of Protestantism, and the new spirit of the time, the conti- nental nations resumed -the liberal treatment of women in regard to property which characterized the early days.We shall see how different was the course of events in England.Of these early German laws the most nearly related to the Anglo-Saxon are the Frisian and Saxon, and among the latter, those of Westphalia.I will undertake a brief description of the laws relating to women, especially in the Lex Saxonum, whicli, as was said before, was probably reduced to writing at the close of the eighth century.'-A.FORM OF BIARRIAGE.-5Iarriagestill kept its ancient form of a sales by which the husband paid a price for his wife to her father or guardian.GrimmJ and others con- sider that a real sale took place in which the woman was considered as property.There are examples of the use of the expression &dquo; buy a wife &dquo; as late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.4~,-Inthese later times the price which the groom paid to the wife's father was paid for the transfer of his J?iuJ1dii<ni or guardianship over his daughter, and not for her person.It is considered by many that this was the case even in the earliest times.Professor Young* says : &dquo; Whether marriage was ever an actual sale of the woman's person, treated as a chattel, may be doubted.&dquo; ' ' It is certain that in historic times the thing transferred was not the person of the woman, but the right of guardianship.&dquo;