Christianity introduced a new moral epoch in the course of human history. Its effect was necessarily transforming upon those who came under its sway. Being cosmopolitan in its nature, we have now to study woman as being somewhat dissociated from racial type and national manner, and we shall seek to ascertain how she met and was modified by Christian conditions.

But in those ages, and especially in such a matter as the winning of wives, diplomacy was a resource not wholly depended upon. Among the marriage ceremonies of later times, there was a custom of parting the hair of the Roman bride with a spear. In this we find a reminiscence of the period when marriage by capture was resorted to when there seemed urgent necessity. Thus Romulus determined that what could not be gained by fair means should be obtained by the best method which came to hand. At the festival of the god Consus, appropriately the deity who presided over hidden deliberations, the...