Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[46] a daughter to her husband, filiae loco, the jurists say. Her legal connection with her own family was broken off; she could not belong to two families, so she was merged in her husband's. For purposes of dignity a certain equality was recognized; she pronounced the formula ubi tu Caius, ego Caia, meaning that she would be the feminine head of the household as he the masculine; but it was only as a matter of dignity; his power was in reality absolute, she held hers only through him. She was essential to the home ; it was incomplete without her — a Roman priest lost his office on becoming a widower; but she was utterly subordinate, almost an accident; the children not only belonged by law to the father, but they were recognized as intrinsically his; she was their custodian, their nurse, even as the Australian islander said.

We may admit that all this belongs to ages of darkness. The question is whether those ages are quite over. While men may properly argue for this or that specific reform in the condition of women, it is better to remember that the whole relation of the sexes has its roots far back in the very oldest traditions of the Aryan race, and their transformation must be a matter of very gradual evolution. Changes have been made that seemed utterly to imperil the old theory of the wife's subordination; and yet in some way or other this tradition has held its own.