Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/122

 or ceded by her parents; it sanctioned the very excessive rights that the husband acquired over the wife. As a rule, the ceremonial of capture coincides with a very great subjection of the woman, even where it is only a very distant survival. At Sparta, for example, the wife might still be lent by the husband, and it was the same in ancient Rome, where she was, according to the legal expression, in manu, assimilated to slaves, and where the pater familias had the right of life and death over her.

We are, therefore, warranted in believing that in civilised countries where conjugal legislation is still derived from the Roman law, the subordinate position assigned to woman is the last vestige of primitive marriage by capture or by rape, attenuated to a purchase, as practised in the earliest times of the Romans.