A second world force to modify the status of women--
Accounts of Caesar
and Tacitus on position of women among Germanic peoples-
-The written
laws of the barbarians--Guardianship--Marriage--Power of the
husband--Divorce--Adultery--The Church indulgent to kings--Remarriage--Property rights--Peculiarities of the criminal
law--Minutely-graded fines--Compurgation and ordeals--
Innocence tested
by the woman walking over red-hot ploughshares--Women in slavery--Comparison of position of women under Roman and under Germanic
laws--Influence of theology--Sources CHAPTER V
DIGRESSION ON THE LATER HISTORY OF ROMAN LAW
Explanation of the various social and political forces which affected
the position of women in the Middle Ages CHAPTER VI
THE CANON LAW AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH
Canon law reaffirms the subjection of women--Women and marriage--Protection to women--Divorce--Cardinal Gibbons on protection
of injured wives by Popes--Catholic Church has no divorce--But it allows
fourteen reasons for declaring marriage null and void and leaving a
husband or wife free to remarry--Some of these explained--Diriment
impediments and dispensations--Historical instances of the Roman
Church's inconsistency--Attitude towards women at present day--Opinions
of Cardinals Gibbon and Moran, and Rev. David Barry and Rev. William
Humphrey--Sources