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 strength. It is expansively generous and scrimpingly just. It will not assure to women a fair field and no favours, which is the salvation of all humanity; but it will protect them from the consequences of their own deeds, and that way lies perdition.

Down through the ages we see the working of this will. Rome denied to women all civic rights, but allowed them many privileges. They were not permitted to make any legal contract. They were not permitted to bequeath their own fortunes, or—ordinarily—to give testimony in court. But they might plead ignorance of the law, "as a ground for dissolving an obligation," which, if often convenient, was always demoralizing. Being somewhat contemptuously absolved from the oath of allegiance in the Middle Ages, they were as a consequence immune from outlawry. On the other hand, the severity with which they were punished 169