In order to assure the equality of rights for the entire Hebrew race, the Law tried to establish, as far as possible, equality of fortune. Every fifty years transferred property had to be returned to the original possessors, but this rule seems hardly to have been observed. Trade and usury, the principal sources of the investment of money, were excluded by the Law from this rule, and thus making Israel an agricultural nation. Israel soon escaped from the obligations. The Hebrew was a most astonishing mixture of idealism and of practical common sense, and this explains many contradictions in his nature. Even to-day the Jew can unite to a prodigious extent, the most terrestrial details with the highest and noblest sentiments. All that was most idealistic in Israel was collected together in the Law; but how far did the lives of the Hebrews resemble their book? Foreigners and colonists were not ill-treated in Israel. The Law guaranteed protection to Hebrew and colonist alike. But the good will shown towards the Canaanite and the sons of Ammon and Moab was not very great. They were forever excluded from using the title of citizen. Neither they nor the bastard nor the eunuch could take a place in the assembly of Yahveh. But at the third generation the sons of Edom and Mizraim were admitted as Israelites on condition they submitted to the ceremony of circumcision, by which the Hebrew was always distinguished from the Gentile. Marriage was considered an absolute obligation, from which nobody could be exempt. This idea was certainly one of the causes of the morality and power of Israel. Woman was not according to the Law an inferior being, she was part of man, she bore the same name as man; he was called _isch_, and she _ischa_, with the feminine termination. No more in Israel than in Egypt were the young girls and young women shut up from all eyes. Nobody could have enjoyed more liberty than Miriam and Deborah. Woman looked up to and free, as she was imagined in a country where law was respected, has been marvellously described at the end of Proverbs. The more they thought of woman, the more she was punished when she forgot her duties. The power of fathers over their sons and daughters before marriage was very great. The latter could be sold as slaves, but only for a time. However, the Law forbids the father the right of killing his children. It was necessary for the father, in order to have his son put to death, to appeal to the assembly of the elders assembled at the gates of the town. Brought up with the knowledge of the Law, the son remained for a long time under the authority of his father, for whom he had to work even after marriage, which emancipated the daughters.