Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/214

198 an epitome of the real history of marriage among the peoples concerned. Relics of such nocturnal visits in the customs of courtship are still extant in the north and west of Europe. A condition similar to that imposed by the fairy of Rousset, or that by Urvasi, may very well be, and probably is, an accompaniment of the custom wherever it is found. To be sure, the exercise of conjugal rights in the course of these stolen interviews is hardly now in accordance with social convention; but in fact it frequently takes place. In the past there is every reason to think it was a more ordinary incident. However much a matter of course it may have been, the full disclosure to one another involved in nudity may always have been deemed indecent, and therefore a proper subject for resentment on the part of the lady. But this is by no means all. The prurience of vowed celibacy and the tyranny of the confessional scrupled not to pry into the most intimate details of married life, and strove to regulate them by the artificial and preposterous ideals of the cloister. Archbishop Theodore's Liber Poenitentialis accordingly imposes on every husband, without qualification, the prohibition laid by the fairy of Rousset on Raymond, though it does not venture so far as to affix a penance to its breach. The ecclesiastical attitude was no doubt perfectly well known; and, whatever the laity might in their hearts think of it, the knowledge would tend to excuse the supernatural lady's rigour on the point.

Mélusine's requirement of absolute privacy on Saturdays presents more difficulty. It will not have escaped attention that Urvasi makes a parallel claim for freedom from her husband's presence except at her own' desire. Such a claim as this presupposes an equality of treatment of the sexes much greater than is now recognized by the Hindu sacred law. But what the law does not recognize is sometimes secured by contract. Deeds have been officially registered