In Germany, during mediæval times, domestic differences were settled by judicial duels between man and wife, and a regular code for their proper conduct was observed. ‘The woman must be so prepared,’ so the instructions run, ‘that a sleeve of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand like a little sack: there indeed is put a stone weighing iii pounds; and she has nothing else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at the elbow to the side.’ The seventeenth century seems to have been prolific of domestic broils, for an unusual number of pamphlets exist which have as their subject the attempts of women to obtain the upper hand over their husbands. One there is, called _Women’s Fegaries_, which is especially bitter. A spirited woodcut on the cover shows a man and woman struggling for a pair of breeches, which certainly would be no gain to either of them, except as a trophy of victory, so immensely large are they. The woman wields a ladle; the man brandishes something that may be either a sword or a cudgel, and both seem in deadly earnest. The contents of this counterblast to women’s efforts are extravagant and amusing; but you shall judge for yourself:-- ‘The proverb says, “There is no wit like the woman’s wit,” especially in matters of mischief, their natures being more prone to evil than good; for, being made of a knobby crooked rib, they contain something in their manners and dispositions of the matter and form of which they were created, as may be instanced in several examples, of which we shall in this sheet of paper give you some of them. ‘At a town called _Stocking Pelham_, in the county [_sic_] of England, not long ago there happened a terrible fray betwixt the man of the house on one side, and his wife and his maid on the other side, and though two to one be great odds at football, yet, by the strength of his arm, and a good crab-tree cudgel, they felt by their bruised sides that he had gotten the victory. Now, though the man’s name was _William_, yet the wife for a great while did want her _Will_--I mean, how to be revenged upon him--until at last she effected, by policy, what she could not compass by strength; for he, putting his head out of a window that had neither Glass nor Lettice belonging to it, but only a riding shutter, he having no eyes behind him, she nimbly stept to the shutter, and ran it up close to his neck, so that he was locked fast, as in a Pillory; where, whilst the one kept him in, the other with a great washing-beetle, belaboured his body, as your Seamen do stock-fish. The maid-servant, a strong-docht wench, with both her hands laying on, and at every blow saying:-- ‘“_Remember how you beat my dame:_ _Now look for to be served the same._”