events in France, and she simply dropped the ring, so that her motion of
stooping was regarded as for the purpose of picking it up. I note that
change for it is significant of the ways in which we modify the traditions
of the past, not quite abandoning them but pretending that they have other
than the fundamental original motives. We see just the same thing in the
use of the ring, which was in the first place a part of the bride-price,
frequently accompanied by money, proof that the wife had been duly
purchased. It was thus made easy to regard the ring as really a golden
fetter. That idea soon became offensive, and the new idea was originated
that the ring was a pledge of affection; thus, quite early in some
countries, the husband, also wore a wedding ring.

The marriage order illustrated by the _Paston Letters_ and the _Book of
the Chevalier de la Tour-Landry_ before the Reformation, and the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer afterwards, has never been definitely broken; it is
a part of our living tradition to-day. But during recent centuries it has
been overlaid by the growth of new fashions and sentiments which have
softened its hard outlines to the view. It has been disguised, notably
during the eighteenth century, by the development of a new feeling of
social equality, chiefly initiated in France, which, in an atmosphere of
public intercourse largely regulated by women, made the ostentatious
assertion of the husband's headship over his wife displeasing and even
ridiculous. Then, especially in the nineteenth century, there began
another movement, chiefly initiated in England and carried further in
America, which affected the foundations of the husband's position from
beneath. This movement consisted in a great number of legislative measures
and judicial pronouncements and administrative orders--each small in
itself and never co-ordinated--which taken altogether have had a
cumulative effect in immensely increasing the rights of the wife
independently of her husband or even in opposition to him. Thus at the