Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/23

 The Law and the Lady could not inherit, when men were born

to the household. She could not ob tain a divorce, for that right was re served exclusively to the husband.

Buddha classed her as a mere chattel without freedom, liberty or rights. The Roman law, at least to the time of the

luxurious Augustus, gave her no pn'vi

13

upon the early subjugation of the lady and has freed her from nearly all re straints. Like Minerva, who sprang full-armed from the brain of Jove, she is now strongly fortiﬁed by the law and can enter upon the contest of life on an

equality with man.

In Vermont few

make no will, could not contract, was

rights and privileges are now denied her. The suffrage has not been conferred upon her, but ere long we men may be desirous of granting her that right in

unable to adopt or be adopted. She was ever under the complete control of hus

creating.

leges. She could neither curator, witness or surety.

band or kinsman.

be tutor, She could

The common law

continued her disabilities. Her property became her husband’s, she could not sue or be sued singly and was otherwise

laden with heavy burdens. If a woman committed the crime of simple larceny, sentence of death could be passed upon her, while a man for the commission of the same offence was only punished by being burned in the hand or given a few months’ imprisonment. If a baron killed his femme it was the same as if he had

killed a stranger. If a femme killed her baron she was punished as in case of treason, and it was the same as if she had killed her king. The modern law looks with disfavor

order to purify conditions of our own The hour demands that I should now leave the subject and the presence of the lady. The rules of court can be compressed into small compass, but the rules of courting can not be indexed, codiﬁed or revised, they spring from the heart and make captive the head. The truth of the matter is, the lady

is above the law. To apply to her the ﬁne phrase of Virgil, "By her mien she reveals herself a goddess," the goddess

of our hearts and homes. Statutes can not deﬁne her affections, constitutions cannot limit her sympathy, the opinion of the court cannot abridge her sacri ﬁce. Her law is life and the soul of her life is love.

The Meaning of a Rare Legal Form HE old case of Shelton v. Skelton, de cided by Lord Nottingham in 1677 and reported in 2 Swanston's Reports, 170, opens with this statement: "The bill was ex hibited against a jointress to stay maresme in felling timber." The sentence would seem to indicate that the Reporter used the word maresme as meaning waste, by the destruc tion of wood, and explained the peculiar kind of destruction charged against the jointress by saying that her maresme was the felling of timber.

The word is comparatively rare in the law and has had a curious history, as is indicated by the following memorandum which I have received from my friend Mr. George F. Deiser, an authority in such matters. Mr. Deiser says 2The word “maresme" or “marisme" has had a checkered career. It appears in Modern French as "merrain" and is deﬁned as "wood cut into planks and prepared for use" (for any purpose, ﬁre. timber and the like). Coke says (Institutes) that "maremium, the Latin term, comes from Old Nor man 'marisme.‘ " This was spelled variously