[Illustration 3: _A TEUTONIC ALLIANCE After the painting by Ferdinand Leeke_ Women serfs, because of beauty or of manifest superiority, often became.... even wives of great leaders.
A Teutonic marriage was concluded when the bridal couch was entered and "one cover touched both."
Not until the fourteenth century did the legality of marriage become dependent upon the conscent of the Church; on the morning after the marriage, the wife received the bridal gifts from her husband; henceforth she enjoyed all the marital rights, but remained subordinate to her husband, who could chastise her of even sell her into slavery.]
In the early times the housefather has the guardianship, _mundium_ (from Old High German _munt_, hand), over his wife, daughters, sisters, and also the duty of protecting them. The father has the right to sell his sons during their minority and his daughters until their marriage, and this barbarous action is common. At the death of the father, the guardianship passes to the next male relative, (the sword relative, _Schwertmagen_, as opposed to the spindle relative, _Spillmageri_). In case of legal marriage, guardianship passes to the husband.
The law of inheritance is greatly in favor of sons, and daughters are frequently entirely excluded from participation in the heritage, or their share is reduced to one-half or one-third of the son's inheritance. This is, however, only in the case of real estate (_Odal_) probably because it needs the sword of the male protector, for the remaining or movable property is equally divided.
The conception of caste privileges, social birthright (_Ebenburtigkeif_), is very strongly developed, inasmuch as women lose caste by marriage with inferiors and give up every claim to the inheritance of their blood relations (_Sippe_); and the caste degradation results at one period in the exclusion from the inheritance of a free father of the children of an unfree woman.
It is but natural that, in the loosening of all the bonds of social order, during the wanderings, the ancient Tacitean purity and monogamy was, to a large extent, lost. Among the high classes, concubinage was the rule, since the lord had absolute power over the unfree maidens, and war and conquest have it in their nature to blot out all natural rights. We meet concubines, called _Fritten_ or _Kebse_, everywhere in the lives of the great kings and chiefs. The Merovingian Franks are especially famous, or rather infamous, for their sexual sins. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious held concubines. The Church, especially at the synod of Mayence, A.D. 851, began to thunder against licentiousness, but in vain. Nor did the monasteries always remain pure from the taint. Winfrid, or Bonifatius, the apostle of the Germans par excellence, complains of the Prankish _diacons_ (deacons) who kept four or more concubines. Frequently, however, the Church submitted, on political grounds, to a recognition of two or more lawful wives taken by one man. But the sense of dignity and self-respect on the part of the women themselves, as we have seen in the case of Harald Fairhair, finally forced monogamy upon the full blooded, semi-barbarous Teutonic warriors, as the leading principle of a lawful marriage.