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168 THE MANNER OF HFE OF
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
* !For Five Centuries Koine Lield Britai...
who might _sliare their labours and lighten their toils . So that
wliile the value of _tlie wife was estimated at only one-third that of her husbandshe was yet allowed an equal participation in his
, property , if they separated by mutual consent . The wording * of this enactment is so curious that we transcribe it at length : —
" If husband and wife separate , the husband has the swine and the sheep ; if only one kind , to be shared . Groats are to the husband .
Of the children , the eldest and youngest to the husband _; the middlemost to the wife .
_" The household furniture shared , but the milking vessels , except the pail to the wife ; the husband the drinking vessels and
riddle ; the wife the sieve . The husband has the up _| _3 er stone of the hand-mill , the wife the lower one . The upper garments are
the wife ' s , the under garments the husband ' s , and the kettle , coverlet , bolster , fuel , axe , settle , and all the hooks except one ; the
pan , trivet , axe-bill , ploughshare , flax , linseed , wool , ' and the house-bag to the wife if any goldit is to be shared between
them . The husband to , have the corn , above ground and under , and the barnthe poultryand one of the cats ; the rest to the wife .
. To the wife , the meat , in the brine and the cheese in the brine ; th 6 se hung , up belong to the husband . The butter , meat , and
cheese , in the cut , belong to the "wife ; also as much meal as she can carry between her arms and kneesfrom , the store-room to the
, house . Their apparel to be divided . " _* Caprice must have dictated many of the above regulations ; but
they have a certain significance . To the wife of the " taeog , " or bondsman , none of these privileges extended ; for the household
goods , even to the clothing , were the _projDerty . of the bondsman ' s master . All she miht do in the exercise of neighbourly kindness ,
was to lend " her sieve g and riddle / ' and these but " at the distance she can be heard calling with her feet on the threshold . "
The picture brightens when we turn to the Saxons . The most adventurous iratesthey were also the bravest and fiercest of the
inhabitants of p ancient , Germany . A branch of the great Teutonic familthey brought with them the religionlaws ,, and customs
comm y on , to that energetic race . The mythology , known as the Scandinavian was the basis of their faith , in which gods and
goddesses were made the exponents of all the fierce and warlike passions which characterized their worshippers ; in which heaven
. was regarded , not as a _23 lace of rest , but as a region where warriors daily engaged in sanguinary fihtto be nightly crowned as
g , victors , and regaled with feast and song ; in which hell was represented as a desolate waste , where silence and solitude , famine and
leanness , became the doom of the coward and the slothful . In common with the whole Teutonic race , the Saxons held women in
* The Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales , p . 38 .
168 The Manner Of Hfe Of
168 THE MANNER OF _HFE OF
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1863, page 168, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051863/page/24/
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