In tracing the evolution of the modern European form of monogamous marriage, we become aware that at a very early period, and for a long time subsequently, the wife was regarded as the absolute property of the husband. The wife was a bought or a captured article, and like other articles of property was at the entire disposal of the owner to use, sell, lend or abuse as he thought fit. The Roman law makes no essential difference between the marital law and the law of property, and modern marriage laws in the different States of Europe and America treat the wife as if she were in a very large degree a personal possession of her husband. The history of modern marriage, in short, is the history of man’s domination of woman and the measures he has taken to assume, assert and establish his rights of possession. Amid changing outward conditions of life, he has made good his claim to control her destiny in accordance with his own varying desires. In appraising the value of our much-vaunted monogamy, we must clearly understand that its legal basis is not, and never was, a strong personal adhesion of sympathy and affection, but a compact respecting personal property, involving in the cases where the “contracting parties are possessed of wealth, both property in person and in things.” It is quite legal, and indeed quite respectable, for marriages to be formed on a pecuniary and social foundation, into which love does not enter. The woman who sells herself in marriage to a man for the sake of money and position is not regarded as a prostitute, but as a respectable, “honest” woman who has made a “fortunate” marriage.