Among the Romans, two forms of marriage placed the wife, soul, body and estate, _in the hands_ of her husband; in a third form, which left her in her father's family, she received a dowry, inherited, and administered her property. Barbarism and feudality made the wife a ward, the husband an administrator, and a step was taken towards the equality of the spouses by the institution of _acquêts_, or property belonging to both, though obtained by but one. To-day, the maiden is married sometimes under the dotal system, occasionally under that of the separation of property, and chiefly under that of communion of goods. This last, which is the rule, permits the husband to dispose of the property of his partner, to sell the household furniture, to take possession of the very jewels of his wife to adorn his mistress. "Thus, this law respects no dignity, no delicacy, nothing whatever," says M. Legouvé. The omnipotence of the husband is a crime of the law in every point of view; it is in manifest violation of the modern principle, which exacts that all authority shall be limited and placed under surveillance. "To surrender to the husband the fortune of the wife is to condemn her to an eternal moral minority, to create him absolute master of the actions and almost of the soul of his companion." The author next addresses himself to those who pretend to justify marital omnipotence by the incapacity of woman: "In vain do facts protest against this alleged incapacity; in vain does reality say: To whom is the prosperity of most of our commercial houses due? To women. Who establish, who superintend the thousands of establishments of millinery and objects of taste? Women. By whom are the boarding-schools, the farms, often even, the manufactories, sustained? By women. It matters not, the Code denies to the wife the foresight to preserve, the judgment to administer, even the maternal tenderness to economize, and the marriage certificate becomes the expression of this disdainful phrase: the most reasonable woman never attains the good sense of a boy fourteen years of age." How shall we set to work to remedy this iniquitous and shameful state of affairs? The property of the partners should be divided into three shares: one for the wife, to be placed at her disposal five years after marriage, one for the husband, and a third common to both, to be administered by the husband under the direction of a family council, which council, in case of incapacity or waste, shall have the right provisionally to take away the management from him, to entrust it to his wife.