“La philosophie stoïcienne et le christianisme,” says M. Koenigswarter, “qui hâtèrent le développement des principes d’égalité, furent surtout favorables aux fils de famille et aux femmes.”[1464] The influence of Christianity shows itself in Teutonic legislation as well as in Roman. An edict of Clothaire I. in 560 prohibited the forcing of women to marry against their will;[1465] although a Council held at Paris three years earlier expressly required the consent of the parents also.[1466] According to the laws of Cnut, no woman or girl could be forced to marry a man whom she disliked.[1467] The Swedish ‘Westgöta-lag’ permitted a woman to dissolve a marriage which had been contracted without her consent;[1468] and similar privileges were granted to her in the ‘Uplands-lag’[1469] and certain other Teutonic law-books.[1470] Later on, the ‘Schwabenspiegel’—a faithful echo of canonical ideas—says, “When a young man has completed his fourteenth year, he can take a wife without the consent of his father.... At twelve years, a maiden is marriageable; and the marriage subsists, even if contracted in spite of her father, or other relatives.”[1471] A similar privilege, during the Middle Ages, was granted to German women in general.[1472] But the feelings of the people seemed to have been opposed to it, and required the consent of the parents. Thus Ulrich von Lichtenstein says in his ‘Frauenbuch,’ “A girl who has no parents should follow the advice of her kinsfolk; if she gives herself to a man of her own accord, she may live with shame.”[1473]