Special Political Discourses on Domestic Society and the Rights of Citizens

CHAPTER II.

On

The Power of the Husband over the Wife: and likewise on the age and equality of spouses.

This also pertains to the political treatment of marriage, so that we may know: the Majesty of Sovereignty original: "Imperii Majestatem," referring to the power of the state or monarch does not extend so far as to obscure that power which belongs to the Husband over the Wife by Divine, Natural, and Positive Law Positive Law refers to man-made statutes, as opposed to natural or divine laws. Indeed, this power is so great that when a Woman comes under the power of a Man, she is no longer considered to be established within her father’s religious rites original: "sacris paternis," a concept from Roman law where a wife left her father’s legal family to join her husband’s. Genesis 2, verse 24; and 31, verse 14. Psalm 45, verse 10. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 10. Ephesians 5, verse 22. Colossians 3, verse 18. (Pausanias has an example of this in book 4, folio 217). And against Roman Law, Arnisaeus seems to defend this with reason in Politics, chapter 3, folio 79 and in his Treatise on Marriage, last chapter, sections 1 and 2. See also Leopold Hackelman, Illustrious Dispute 1, thesis 18; Timaeus Faber, Disputations on the Institutes 5, thesis 1, in the note at the end; Justus Majer, in Disputations on Book 1 of the Digests, thesis 147; Jacob Cramer, Disputations on the Institutes 2, last thesis. Certainly, by this reasoning, marriage would be thrown into disorder without a clear head of the household. Law 1 at the end, on exhibiting children; Law 5 of the Code, on repudiations. The Illustrious Enenckel dissents in On the Privileges of Parents, Privilege 1, chapter 12, at the beginning. In the original state referring to the state of humanity in Eden before the Fall, the Woman was subject to the Man as her head. The Curse subjected the wife to the dominion of the husband. Genesis 3, verse 16. And because a married daughter leaves the power of her Father, among the Jews she was not compelled to support her Parents. Drusius, Hebrew Questions 2, chapter 63. But truly, that Law is to be detested, which the lords of certain lands in France still claimed for themselves until not many years ago, regarding new brides The author is likely referring to the "Droit du seigneur," the purported right of a lord to the first night with a subordinate's bride. Papon, book 22, title 9, decree 18, folio 1272. Bodin also suggests in On the Republic, book 5, chapter 2—as does Lather in On Taxes, book 3, chapter 4—that certain laws regarding Dowries dowry: property or money brought by a bride to her husband at marriage should be passed, both so that households are not exhausted by the excessive size of dowries, and especially so that with a moderate Dowry, Women may more easily be compelled toward modesty and obedience to their Husbands. See Juvenal, Satire 6; Nicolaus Betsius, On Family Pacts, folio 190; Barthold Musculus, Treatise on Conventional Successions, member 2, number 126, etc., folio 64; Arnisaeus, On Marriage, chapter 3, section 8, number 14, etc.; Costanus, Treatise on Dowries 1, number 3; Rolhag in The Contest between Male and Female, chapter 34. For the same reason, Bodin denies inheritance to women; whom Zabelius, in Arumaeus's Final Discourse, thesis 7, incautiously reproaches. And certainly, the renunciations of daughters legal acts where daughters formally gave up their claims to family inheritance, often upon receiving a dowry practiced in many places rest upon this foundation.