The opposite of polygamy,--as we have learned to know it among Oriental peoples, and as it still exists among them, but owing to the number of available women and the cost of their support, can be indulged in only by the privileged and the rich--is polyandry. The latter exists mainly among the highland people of Thibet, among the Garras on the Hindoo-Chinese frontier, among the Baigas in G.o.dwana, the Nairs in the southern extremity of India; it is said to be found also among the Eskimos and Aleutians. Heredity is determined in the only way possible,--after the mother: the children belong to her. The husbands of a woman are usually brothers. When the elder brother marries, the other brothers likewise become the husbands of the woman; the woman, however, preserves the right to take other men besides. Conversely, the men also are said to have the right of taking a second, third, fourth, or more wives. To what circ.u.mstances polyandry owes its origin is not yet clear.
Seeing that the polyandrous nations, without exception, live either on high mountain regions, or in the cold zone, polyandry probably owes its existence to a phenomenon that Tarnowsky comments on.[22] He learned from reliable travelers that a long sojourn at high elevations lowers the sensuous pleasures, and weakens erection, both of which return with new vigor by re-descension to lower alt.i.tudes. This lowering of the s.e.xual powers, Tarnowsky is of the opinion, might partly account for the comparative slight increase of population on highland regions; and he is of the opinion that, when the debility is transmitted, it may become a source of degeneration that operates upon the perversity of the s.e.xual sense.
We may also add that a protracted domicile, together with the habits of life contracted on very high or cold regions, may have for a further result that polyandry lays no excessive demands upon a woman. The women themselves are correspondingly affected in their nature. That they are so is rendered probable by the circ.u.mstance that, among the Eskimo girls, menstruation sets in only with the nineteenth year, whereas in the warm zones it sets in as early as the tenth or eleventh, and in the temperate lat.i.tudes between the fourteenth and the sixteenth year. In view of the fact that warm climates, as universally recognized, exercise a strongly stimulating influence upon the s.e.xual instinct,--whence polygamy finds its widest diffusion in warm countries--it is quite likely that cold regions--to which high mountains and plateaus belong, and where the thinner air may also contribute its share--may exercise materially a restringent effect upon the s.e.xual instinct. It must, moreover, be noted that experience shows conception occurs rarer with women who cohabit with several men. The increase of population is, accordingly, slight under polyandry; and it fits in with the difficulty of securing subsistence, encountered in cold lands and mountain regions;--whereby additional proof is furnished that also, in this, to us so seemingly strange phenomenon of polyandry, production has its determining influence upon the relations of the s.e.xes. Finally, it is to be ascertained whether among these peoples, who live on high mountains or in cold zones, the killing of girl babies is not a frequent practice, as is oft reported of the Mongolian tribes, on the highlands of China.
Exactly the reverse of the custom among the Romans during the Empire, of allowing celibacy and childlessness to gain the upper hand, was the custom prevalent among the Jews. True enough, the Jewish woman had no right to choose; her father fixed upon the husband she was to wed; but marriage was a duty, that they religiously followed. The Talmud advises: "When your daughter is of marriageable age, give his freedom to one of your slaves and engage her to him." In the same sense the Jews followed strictly the command of their G.o.d: "Increase and multiply." Due to this, and despite all persecutions and oppression, they have diligently increased their numbers. The Jew is the sworn enemy of Malthusianism.
Already Tacitus says of them: "Among themselves there is a stubborn holding together, and ready open-handedness; but, for all others, hostile hatred. Never do they eat, never do they sleep with foes; and, although greatly inclined to sensuousness, they abstain from procreation with foreign women. Nevertheless they strive to increase their people.
Infanticide is held a sin with them; and the souls of those who die in battle or by execution they consider immortal. Hence the love of procreation beside their contempt of death." Tacitus hated and abhorred the Jews, because, in contempt of the religion of their fathers, they heaped up wealth and treasures. He called them the "worst set of people," an "ugly race."[23]
Under the over-lordship of the Romans, the Jews drew ever closer together. Under the long period of sufferings, which, from that time on, they had to endure, almost throughout the whole of the Christian Middle Ages, grew that intimate family life that is to-day considered a sort of pattern by the modern bourgeois _regime_. On the other side, Roman society underwent the process of disintegration and dissolution, which led the Empire to its destruction. Upon the excesses, bordering on insanity, followed the other extreme,--the most rigid abstinence. As excess, in former days, now asceticism a.s.sumed religious forms. A dream-land-fanaticism made propaganda for it. The unbounded gluttony and luxury of the ruling cla.s.ses stood in glaring contrast with the want and misery of the millions upon millions that conquering Rome dragged, from all the then known countries of the world, into Italy and slavery. Among these were also numberless women, who, separated from their domestic hearths, from their parents or their husbands, and torn from their children, felt their misery most keenly, and yearned for deliverance. A large number of Roman women, disgusted at that which happened all around them, found themselves in similar frame of mind; any change in their condition seemed to them a relief. A deep longing for a change, for deliverance, took possession of extensive social layers;--and the deliverer seemed to approach. The conquest of Jerusalem and of the Jewish kingdom by the Romans had for its consequence the destruction of all national independence, and begot among the ascetic sects of that country, dreamers, who announced the birth of a new kingdom, that was to bring freedom and happiness to all.
Christ came, and Christianity arose. It embodied the opposition to the b.e.s.t.i.a.l materialism that reigned among the great and the rich of the Roman Empire; it represented the revolt against the contempt for and oppression of the ma.s.ses. But originating in Judaism, which knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached contempt for woman. It also preached abstinence, the mortification of the flesh, then so sinful, and it pointed with its ambiguous phrases to a prospective kingdom, which some interpreted as of heaven, others as of earth, and which was to bring freedom and justice to all. With these doctrines it found fertile ground in the submerged bottom of the Roman Empire. Woman, hoping, along with all the miserable, for freedom and deliverance from her condition, joined readily and zealously. Down to our own days, never yet was a great and important movement achieved in the world without women also having been conspicuously active as combatants and martyrs. Those who praise Christianity as a great achievement of civilization should not forget that it was woman in particular to whom Christianity owes a great part of its success. Her proselyting zeal played a weighty _role_ in the Roman Empire, as well as among the barbarous peoples of the Middle Ages.
The mightiest were by her converted to Christianity. It was Clotilde, for instance, who moved Clovis, the King of the Franks, to accept Christianity; it was, again, Bertha, Queen of Kent, and Gisela, Queen of Hungary, who introduced Christianity in their countries. To the influence of the women is due the conversion of many of the great. But Christianity requited woman ill. Its tenets breathe the same contempt for woman that is breathed in all the religions of the East. It orders her to be the obedient servant of her husband, and the vow of obedience she must, to this day, make to him at the altar.
Let us hear the Bible and Christianity speak of woman and marriage. The ten commandments are addressed only to the men; in the tenth commandment woman is bracketed with servants and domestic animals. Man is warned not to covet his neighbor"s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his a.s.s, nor anything that is his. Woman, accordingly, appears as an object, as a piece of property, that the man may not hanker after, if in another"s possession. Jesus, who belonged to a sect--the sect which imposed upon itself strict asceticism and even self-emasculation[24]--being asked by his disciples whether it is good to marry, answers: "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother"s womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, _which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven"s sake_."[25] Emasculation is, according hereto, an act hallowed by G.o.d, and the renunciation of love and marriage a good deed.
Paul, who, in a higher degree than even Jesus himself, may be called the founder of the Christian religion; Paul, who first impressed an international character upon this creed, and tore it away from the narrow sectarianism of the Jews, writes to the Corinthians: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman;" "he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better."[26] "Walk in the Spirit and fulfil not the l.u.s.t of the flesh, for the flesh l.u.s.teth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh;" "they that are Christ"s have crucified the flesh, with the affections and l.u.s.ts."" He followed his own precepts, and did not marry. This hatred of the flesh _is the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman_, who--see the scene in Paradise--is represented as the seducer of man. In this spirit did the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church preach; in this spirit did the Church work throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, when it reared its cloisters, and introduced celibacy among the priesthood;--and to this day it works in the same spirit.
According to Christianity, woman is the _unclean being_; the seducer, who introduced sin into the world and ruined man. Hence Apostles, and Fathers of the Church alike, have ever looked upon marriage as a necessary evil,--the same as is said to-day of prost.i.tution. Tertulian exclaims: "Woman, thou should ever walk in mourning and rags, thy eyes full of tears, present the aspect of repentance to induce forgetfulness of your having ruined the human race. Woman, thou art the Gate of h.e.l.l!"
Hieronymus says: "Marriage always is a vice; all that we can do is to excuse and cleanse it," hence it was made a sacrament of the Church.
Origen declares: "Marriage is something unholy and unclean, a means for sensuality," and, in order to resist the temptation, he emasculated himself. Tertulian declares: "Celibacy is preferable, even if the human race goes to ground." Augustine teaches: "The celibates will shine in heaven like brilliant stars, while their parents (who brought them forth) are like dark stars." Eusebius and Hieronymus agree that the Biblical command, "Increase and multiply," no longer fits the times, and does not concern the Christians. Hundreds of other quotations from the most influential Fathers of the Church could be cited, all of which tend in the same direction. By means of their continuous teaching and preaching, they have spread those unnatural views touching s.e.xual matters, and the intercourse of the s.e.xes, _the latter of which, nevertheless, remains a commandment of nature, and obedience to which is one of the most important duties in the mission of life_. Modern society is still severely ailing from these teachings, and it is recovering but slowly.
Peter calls out emphatically to women: "Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands."[27] Paul writes to the Ephesians: "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church;"[28] and in Corinthians: "Man is the image and glory of G.o.d; but the woman is the glory of the man."[29] According to which every sot of a man may hold himself better than the most distinguished woman;--indeed, it is so in practice to-day. Also against the higher education of women does Paul raise his weighty voice: "Let the woman learn in silence with all _subjection_. _But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, out to be in silence_;"[30] and again: "Let your women _keep silence_ in the churches; _for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience_, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, _let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church_."[31]
Such doctrines are not peculiar to Christianity only. Christianity being a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and seeing that these, in turn, have their roots in the older civilization of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Hindoos, the subordinate position that Christianity a.s.signed to woman was one common in antiquity. In the Hindoo laws of Manu it is said regarding woman: "The source of dishonor is woman; the source of strife is woman; the source of earthly existence is woman; therefore avoid woman." Beside this degradation of woman, fear of her ever and anon reappears naively. Manu further sets forth: "Woman is by nature ever inclined to tempt man; hence a man should not sit in a secluded place even with his nearest female relative." Woman, accordingly, is, according to the Hindoo as well as the Old Testament and Christian view, everywhere the tempter. All masterhood implies the degradation of the mastered. The subordinate position of woman continues, to this day, even more in force in the backward civilization of the East than among the nations that enjoy a so-called Christian view-point. That which, in the so-called Christian world, gradually improved the situation of woman was, not Christianity, but _the advanced culture of the West struggling against the Christian doctrine_.
Christianity is guiltless of woman"s present improved position to what it was at the start of the era. Only reluctantly, and forced thereto, did Christianity become untrue to its true spirit with regard to woman.
Those who rave about "the mission of Christianity to emanc.i.p.ate mankind," differ from us in this, as in other respects. They claim that Christianity freed woman from her previous low position, and they ground themselves upon the worship of Mary, the "mother of G.o.d,"--a cult, however, that sprang up only later in Christendom, but which they point to as a sign of regard for the whole s.e.x. The Roman Catholic Church, which celebrates this cult, should be the last to lay claim to such a doctrine. The Saints and Fathers of the Church, cited above, and whose utterances could be easily multiplied--and they are the leading Church authorities--express themselves separately and collectively hostile to woman and to marriage. The Council of Macon, which, in the sixteenth century, discussed the question whether woman had a soul, and which decided with a majority of but one vote, that she had, likewise argues against the theory of such a friendly posture towards woman. The introduction of celibacy by Gregory VII[32]--although resorted to first of all and mainly with the end in view of holding in the unmarried priesthood a power that could not be alienated from the service of the Church through any family interests--was, nevertheless, possible only with such fundamental doctrines as the Church held touching the sinfulness of the l.u.s.ts of the flesh; and it goes to confirm our theory.
Neither did the Reformers, especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers, with their wrath at the "l.u.s.ts of the flesh," entertain any doubt touching the hostile posture of Christianity towards woman.[33]
By the introduction of the cult of Mary, the Roman Catholic Church shrewdly placed the worship of Mary in the place of that of the heathen G.o.ddesses, in vogue among _all_ the people over whom Christianity was then extending itself. _Mary_ took the place of the Cybele, the Mylitta, the Aphrodite, the Venus, the Ceres, etc., of the southern races; of the Freia, the Frigga, etc., of the Germanian tribes. She was a mere spiritually-Christian idealization.
The primeval, physically robust, though rude yet uncorrupted races, that, during the first centuries of our reckoning, crowded down from the North and East like a gigantic ocean wave, and swamped the worn-out universal Empire of Rome, where Christianity had gradually been superimposing itself as master, resisted with all their might the ascetic doctrines of the Christian preachers. With good grace or bad, the latter were forced to reckon with these robust natures. With astonishment did the Romans perceive that the customs of those peoples were quite different from their own. Tacitus rendered to this fact the tribute of his acknowledgment, which, with regard to the Germans, he expressed in these words: "The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict and severe among them; nor is there anything in their manners more commendable than this. Almost singly among the barbarians, they content themselves with one wife. Adultery is extremely rare among so numerous a people. Its punishment is instant, and at the pleasure of the husband.
He cuts off the hair of the offender, strips her, and in the presence of her relations expels her from his house, and pursues her with stripes through the whole village. Nor is any indulgence shown to a prost.i.tute.
Neither beauty, youth, nor riches can procure her a husband; for none there looks on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of the world. The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence pa.s.s the age of p.u.b.erty unexhausted; nor are the virgins hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth is required; the s.e.xes unite equally matched, and robust; and the children inherit the vigor of their parents."
With the object in view of holding up a pattern to the Romans, Tacitus painted the conjugal conditions of the old Germans with rather too rosy a hue. No doubt, the adulteress was severely punished among them; but the same did not hold good with regard to the adulterer. At the time of Tacitus, the gens was still in bloom among the Germans. He, to whom, living under the advanced Roman conditions, the old gentile const.i.tution, together with its principles, was bound to seem strange and incomprehensible, narrates with astonishment that, with the Germans, the mother"s brother, considered his nephew as an own son; aye, some looked upon the bond of consanguinity between the uncle on the mother"s side and his nephew as more sacred and closer than that between father and son. So that, when hostages were demanded, the sister"s son was considered a better guarantee than an own son. Engels adds hereto: "If an own son was given by the members of such a gens as a pledge for a treaty, and he fell a sacrifice through his own father"s violation of the treaty, the latter had to settle accounts for himself. If, however, it was a sister"s son who was sacrificed, then the old gentile right was violated. The nearest gentile relative, held before all others to safeguard the boy or lad, had caused his death; he either had no right to offer him as a pledge, or he was bound to observe the treaty."[34]
For the rest, as Engels shows, the mother-right had already yielded to the father-right among the Germans, at the time of Tacitus. The children inherited from their father; in the absence of these, then the brothers and the uncle of the father on the mother"s side. The admission of the mother"s brother as an heir, although descent from the father determined the line of inheritance, is explained with the theory that the old right had only recently died away. It was only reminiscences of the old right that furnished the conditions, which enabled Tacitus to find a, to the Romans, incomprehensible regard for the female s.e.x among the Germans. He also found that their courage was p.r.i.c.ked to the utmost by the women.
The thought that their women might fall into captivity or slavery was the most horrible that the old German could conceive of; it spurred him to utmost resistance. But the women also were animated by the spirit that possessed the men. When Marius refused the captured women of the Teutons to dedicate themselves as priestesses to Vesta (the G.o.ddess of maidenly chast.i.ty) they committed suicide.
In the time of Tacitus, the Germans already acquired settled habitations. Yearly the division of land by lots took place. Besides that, there was common property in the woods, water and pasture grounds.
Their lives were yet simple; their wealth princ.i.p.ally cattle; their dress consisted of coa.r.s.e woolen mantles, or skins of animals. Neither women nor chiefs wore under-clothing. The working of metals was in practice only among those tribes located too far away for the introduction of Roman products of industry. Justice was administered in minor affairs by the council of elders; on more important matters, by the a.s.sembly of the people. The chiefs were elected, generally out of the same family, but the transition of the father-right favored the heredity of office, and led finally to the establishment of a hereditary n.o.bility, from which later sprang the kingdom. As in Greece and Rome, the German gens went to pieces with the rise of private property and the development of industries and trade, and through the commingling with members of strange tribes and peoples. The place of the gens was taken by the community, the mark, the democratic organization of free peasants, the latter of which, in the course of many centuries, const.i.tuted a firm bulwark in the struggles against the n.o.bility, the Church and the Princes,--a bulwark that broke down by little and little, but that did not wholly crumble even after the feudal State had come to power, and the one-time free peasants were in droves reduced to the condition of serfs and dependents.
The confederation of marks was represented by the heads of the families.
Married women, daughters, daughters-in-law were excluded from council and administration. The time when women were conspicuous in the conduct of the affairs of the tribe--a circ.u.mstance that likewise astonished Tacitus in the highest degree, and which he reports in terms of contempt--were gone. The Salic law abolished in the fifth century of our reckoning the succession of the female s.e.x to hereditary domains.
Soon as he married, every member of a mark was ent.i.tled to a share in the common lands. As a rule, grand-parents, parents and children lived under one roof, in communal household. Hence, with a view of being allotted a further share, under-aged or unripe sons were not infrequently married by their father to some marriageable maiden; the father then filled the duties of husband, in the stead of his son.[35]
Young married couples received a cart-load of beechwood, and timber for a block-house. If a daughter was born to the couple, they received one load of wood; if a son, two loads.[36] The female s.e.x was considered worth only one-half.
_Marriage was simple. A religious formality was unknown. Mutual declarations sufficed. As soon as a couple mounted the nuptial bed, the marriage was consummated._ The custom that marriage needs an act of the Church for its validity, came in only in the ninth century. Only in the sixteenth century, on decree of the Council of Trent, was marriage declared a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church.
With the rise of feudalism, the condition of a large number of the members of the free communities declined. The victorious army-commanders utilized their power to appropriate large territories unto themselves; they considered themselves masters of the common property, which they distributed among their devoted retinue--slaves, serfs, freedmen, generally of foreign descent,--for a term of years, or with the right of inheritance. They thus furnished themselves with a court and military n.o.bility, in all things devoted to their will. The establishment of the large Empire of the Franks finally put an end to the last vestiges of the old gentile const.i.tution. In the place of the former councils of chiefs, now stood the lieutenants of the army and of the newly formed n.o.bility.
Gradually, the ma.s.s of the freemen, members of the once free communities, lapsed into exhaustion and poverty, due to the continuous wars of conquest and the strifes among the great, whose burdens they had to bear. They could no longer meet the obligation of furnishing the army requisitions. In lieu thereof, Princes and high n.o.bility secured servants, while the peasants placed themselves and their property under the protection of some temporal or spiritual lord--the Church had managed, within but few centuries, to become a great power--wherefor they paid rent and tribute. Thus the thitherto free peasant"s estate was transformed into hired property; and this, with time, was burdened with ever more obligations. Once landed in this state of dependence, it was not long before the peasant lost his personal freedom also. In this way dependence and serfdom spread ever more.
The landlord possessed the almost absolute right of disposal over his serfs and dependents. He had the right, as soon as a male reached his eighteenth year, or the female her fourteenth, to compel their marriage.
He could a.s.sign a woman to a man, and a man to a woman. He enjoyed the same right over widows and widowers. In his attribute of lord over his subjects, he also considered the s.e.xual use of his female serfs and dependents to be at his own disposal,--a power that finds its expression in the "jus primae noctis" (the right of the first night). This right also belonged to his representative, the stewart, unless, upon the payment of a tribute, the exercise of the right was renounced. The very names of the tribute betray its nature.[37]
It is extensively disputed that this "right of the first night" ever existed. The "right of the first night" is quite a thorn in the side of certain folks, for the reason that the right was still exercised at an age, that they love to hold up as a model,--a genuine model of morality and piety. It has been pointed out how this "right of the first night"
was the rudiment of a custom, that hung together with the age of the mother-right, when all the women were the wives of all the men of a cla.s.s. With the disappearance of the old family organization, the custom survived in the surrender of the bride, on the wedding night, to the men of her own community. But, in the course of time, the right is ever more restricted, and finally falls to the chief of the tribe, or to the priest, as a religious act, to be exercised by them alone. The feudal lord a.s.sumes the right as a consequence of his power over the person who belongs to the land, and which is his property; and he exercises the right if he wills, or relinquishes it in lieu of a tribute in products or money. How real was the "right of the first night" appears from Jacob Grimm"s "Weisthumer."[38]
Sugenheim[39] says the "jus primae noctis," as a right appertaining to the landlords, originates in that his consent to marriage was necessary.
Out of this right there arose in Bearn the usage that all the first-born of marriages, in which the "jus primae noctis" was exercised, were of free rank. Later, the right was generally redeemable by a tribute.
According to Sugenheim, those who held most stubbornly to the right were the Bishops of Amiens; it lasted with them till the beginning of the fifteenth century. In Scotland the right was declared redeemable by King Malcolm III, towards the end of the eleventh century; in Germany, however, it continued in force much longer. According to the archives of a Swabian cloister, Adelberg, for the year 1496, the serfs, located at Boertlingen, had to redeem the right by the bridegroom"s giving a cake of salt, and the bride paying one pound seven shillings, or with a pan, "in which she can sit with her b.u.t.tocks." In other places the bridegrooms had to deliver to the landlord for ransom as much cheese or b.u.t.ter "as their b.u.t.tocks were thick and heavy." In still other places they had to give a handsome cordovan tarbouret "that they could just fill."[40] According to the accounts given by the Bavarian Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, Welsch, the obligation to redeem the "jus primae noctis" existed in Bavaria as late as the eighteenth century.[41] Furthermore, Engels reports that, among the Welsh and the Scots, the "right of the first night" prevailed throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, with the difference only that, due to the continuance of the gentile organization, it was not the landlord, or his representative, but the chief of the clan, as the last representative of the one-time husbands in common, who exercised the right, in so far as it was not redeemed.
There is, accordingly, no doubt whatever that the so-called "right of the first night" existed, not only during the whole of the Middle Ages, but continued even down to modern days, and played its _role_ under the code of feudalism. In Poland, the n.o.blemen arrogated the right to deflower any maid they pleased, and a hundred lashes were given him who complained. That the sacrifice of maidenly honor seems even to-day a matter of course to landlords and their officials in the country, transpires, not only in Germany, oftener than one imagines, but it is a frequent occurrence all over the East and South of Europe, as is a.s.serted by experts in countries and the peoples.
In the days of feudalism, marriage was a matter of interest to the landlord. The children that sprang therefrom entered into the same relation of subjection to him as their parents; the labor-power at his disposal increased in numbers, his income rose. Hence _spiritual_ and _temporal_ landlords favored marriage among their va.s.sals. The matter lay otherwise, particularly for the Church, if, by the prevention of marriage, the prospect existed of bringing land into the possession of the Church by testamentary bequests. This, however, occurred only with the lower ranks of freemen, whose condition, due to the circ.u.mstances already mentioned, became ever more precarious, and who, listening to religious suggestions and superst.i.tion, relinquished their property to the Church in order to find protection and peace behind the walls of a cloister. Others, again, placed themselves under the protection of the Church, in consideration of the payment of duties, and the rendering of services. Frequently their descendants fell on this route a prey to the very fate which their ancestors had sought to escape. They either gradually became Church dependents, or were turned into novices for the cloisters.
The towns, which, since the eleventh century were springing up, then had at that time a lively interest in promoting the increase of population; settlement in them and marriage were made as easy as possible. The towns became especially asylums for countrymen, fleeing from unbearable oppression, and for fugitive serfs and dependents. Later, however, matters changed. So soon as the towns had acquired power, and contained a well-organized body of the trades, hostility arose against new immigrants, mostly propertyless peasants, who wanted to settle as handicraftsmen. Inconvenient compet.i.tors were scented in these. The barriers raised against immigration were multiplied. High settlement fees, expensive examinations, limitations of a trade to a certain number of masters and apprentices,--all this condemned thousands to pauperism, to a life of celibacy, and to vagabondage. When, in the course of the sixteenth century, and for reasons to be mentioned later, the flower-time of the towns was pa.s.sing away, and their decline had set in, the narrow horizon of the time caused the impediments to settlement and independence to increase still more. Other circ.u.mstances also contributed their demoralizing effect.
The tyranny of the landlords increased so mightily from decade to decade that many of the va.s.sals preferred to exchange their sorrowful life for the trade of the tramp or the highwayman,--an occupation that was greatly aided by the thick woods and the poor condition of the roads.
Or, invited by the many violent disturbances of the time, they became soldiers, who sold themselves where the price was highest, or the booty seemed most promising. An extensive male and female slum-proletariat came into existence, and became a plague to the land. The Church contributed faithfully to the general depravity. Already, in the celibatic state of the priesthood there was a main-spring for the fostering of s.e.xual excesses; these were still further promoted through the continuous intercourse kept up with Italy and Rome.
Rome was not merely the capital of Christendom, as the residence of the Papacy. True to its antecedents during the heathen days of the Empire, Rome had become the new Babel, the European High School of immorality; and the Papal court was its princ.i.p.al seat. With its downfall, the Roman Empire had bequeathed all its vices to Christian Europe. These vices were particularly nursed in Italy, whence, materially aided by the intercourse of the priesthood with Rome, they crowded into Germany. The uncommonly large number of priests, to a great extent vigorous men, whose s.e.xual wants were intensified by a lazy and luxurious life, and who, through compulsory celibacy, were left to illegitimate or unnatural means of gratification, carried immorality into all circles of society.
This priesthood became a sort of pest-like danger to the morals of the female s.e.x in the towns and villages. Monasteries and nunneries--and their number was legion--were not infrequently distinguishable from public houses only in that the life led in them was more unbridled and lascivious, and in that numerous crimes, especially infanticide, could be more easily concealed, seeing that in the cloisters only they exercised the administration of justice who led in the wrong-doing.
Often did peasants seek to safeguard wife and daughter from priestly seduction by accepting none as a spiritual shepherd who did not bind himself to keep a concubine;--a circ.u.mstance that led a Bishop of Constance to impose a "concubine tax" upon the priests of his diocese.
Such a condition of things explains the historically attested fact, that during the Middle Ages--pictured to us by silly romanticists as so pious and moral--not less than 1500 strolling women turned up in 1414, at the Council of Constance.
But these conditions came in by no means with the decline of the Middle Ages. They began early, and gave continuous occasion for complaints and decrees. In 802 Charles the Great issued one of these, which ran this wise: "The cloisters of nuns shall be strictly watched; the nuns may not roam about; they shall be kept with great diligence; neither shall they live in strife and quarrel with one another; they shall in no wise be disobedient to their Superiors or Abbesses, or cross the will of these.
Wherever they are placed under the rules of a cloister they are to observe them throughout. Not whoring, not drunkenness, not covetousness shall they be the ministrants of, but in all ways lead just and sober lives. Neither shall any man enter their cloisters, except to attend ma.s.s, and he shall immediately depart." A regulation of the year 869 provided: "If priests keep several women, or shed the blood of Christians or heathens, or break the canonical law, they shall be deprived of their priesthood, because they are worse than laymen." The fact that the possession of several women was forbidden in those days only to the priests, indicates that marriage with several wives was no rare occurrence in the ninth century. In fact, there were no laws forbidding it.
Aye, and even later, at the time of the Minnesaenger, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the possession of several wives was considered in order.[42]
The position of woman was aggravated still more by the circ.u.mstance that, along with all the impediments which gradually made marriage and settlement harder, their number materially exceeded that of the men. As special reasons herefor are to be considered the numerous wars and feuds, together with the perilousness of commercial voyages of those days. Furthermore, mortality among men was higher, as the result of habitual excesses and drunkenness. The predisposition to sickness and death that flowed from such habits of life, manifested itself strongly in the numerous pest-like diseases that raged during the Middle Ages. In the interval between 1326 to 1400, there were thirty-two; from 1400 to 1500, forty-one; and from 1500 to 1600, thirty years of pestilence.[43]
Swarms of women roamed along the highways as jugglers, singers and players in the company of strolling students and clericals; they flooded the fairs and markets; they were to be found wherever large crowds gathered, or festivals were celebrated. In the regiments of foot-soldiers they const.i.tuted separate divisions, with their own sergeants. There, and quite in keeping with the guild character of the age, they were a.s.signed to different duties, according to looks and age; and, under severe penalties, were not allowed to prost.i.tute themselves to any man outside of their own branch. In the camps, they had to fetch hay, straw and wood; fill up trenches and ponds; and attend to the cleaning of the place along with the baggage lads. In sieges, they had to fill up the ditches with brushwood, lumber and f.a.ggots in order to help the storming of the place. They a.s.sisted in placing the field pieces in position; and when these stuck in the bottomless roads, they had to give a hand in pulling them out again.[44]
In order to counteract somewhat the misery of this crowd of helpless women, so-called "Bettinen houses" were inst.i.tuted in many cities, and placed under munic.i.p.al supervision. Sheltered in these establishments, the women were held to the observance of a decent life. But neither these establishments, nor the numerous nunneries, were able to receive all that applied for succor.
The difficulties in the way of marriage; the tours undertaken by Princes, and by temporal and spiritual magnates, who with their retinues of knights and bondmen, visited the cities; even the male youth of the cities themselves, the married men not excluded, who, buoyant with life and unaffected by scruples, sought change in pleasures;--all this produced as early as in the Middle Ages the demand for prost.i.tution. As every trade was in those days organized and regulated, and could not exist without a guild, it so was with prost.i.tution also. In all large cities there were "houses of women"--munic.i.p.al, prince or Church regalities--the net profits of which flowed into the corresponding treasuries. The women in these houses had a "head-mistress," elected by themselves, who was to keep discipline and order, and whose special duty it was to diligently watch that non-guild compet.i.tors, the "interlopers," did not injure the legitimate trade. When caught, these were condignly punished. The inmates of one of these houses for women, located in Nuerenberg, complained with the Magistrate, that "other inn-keepers also kept women, who walked the streets at night, and took in married and other men, and that these plied (the trade) to such an extent, and so much more brazenly, than they did themselves in the munic.i.p.al (guild) girls-house, that it was a pity and a shame to see such things happen in this worthy city."[45] These "houses for women"
enjoyed special protection; disturbances of the peace in their neighborhood were fined twice as heavily. The female guild members also had the right to take their place in the processions and festivals, at which, as is known, the guilds always a.s.sisted. Not infrequently were they also drawn in as guests at the tables of Princes and Munic.i.p.al Councilmen. The "houses of women" were considered serviceable for the "protection of marriage and of the honor of the maidens,"--the identical reasoning with which State brothels were justified in Athens, and even to-day prost.i.tution is excused. All the same, there were not wanting violent persecutions of the _filles de joie_, proceeding from the identical male circles who supported them with their custom and their money. The Emperor Charlemagne decreed that prost.i.tutes shall be dragged naked to the market place and there whipped; and yet, he himself, "the Most Christian King and Emperor," had not less than six wives at a time; and neither were his daughters, who followed their father"s example, by any means paragons of virtue. They prepared for him in the course of their lives many an unpleasant hour, and brought him home several illegitimate children. Alkuin, the friend and adviser of Charlemagne, warned his pupils against "the crowned doves, who flew at night over the palatinate," and he meant thereby the daughters of the Emperor.
The identical communities, that officially organized the brothel system, that took it under their protection, and that granted all manner of privileges to the "priestesses of Venus," had the hardest and most cruel punishment in reserve for the poor and forsaken Magdalen. The female infanticide, who, driven by desperation, killed the fruit of her womb, was, as a rule, sentenced to suffer the most cruel death penalty; n.o.body bothered about the unconscionable seducer himself. Perchance he even sat on the Judge"s bench, which decreed the sentence of death upon the poor victim. The same happens to-day.[46] Likewise was adultery by the wife punished most severely; she was certain of the pillory, at least; but over the adultery of the husband the mantle of Christian charity was thrown.
In Wuerzburg, during the Middle Ages, the keeper of women swore before the Magistrate: "To be true and good to the city, and to procure women."