The political status remains as of old. There are two great divisions of the people: the free men and the unfree. The former are subdivided into nobles (_adalinge_ or _edelinge_) and common freemen (_Gemeinfreie, liberi_); the unfree are either tributary (_Horige, liten or lassen, manumitted_), or real serfs (_Schalke, servi_). Exactly the same division holds true for women. The serfs, men and women, are without rights, and are valued as chattels, though manumission or absolute liberation is possible. Bravery in war creates a "nobility of arms" (_Waffenadel_), based upon the sword; and thus renders this species of nobility accessible to all in the same manner that, among the Carlovingians, "court nobility" (_Amtsadel_) may be obtained by the ministeriales, or civil servants, as the reward of merit or by the favor of the king. Women serfs, because of beauty or of manifest superiority, often become concubines, mistresses, and even wives of nobles and princes, and sometimes of kings. Blood relationship, family, and the rulership of the housefather are in this early period the base and centre of social order. So the legal relation between man and woman is command and obedience; protection and responsibility. The wife is subordinate, and has no official voice or vote in the community or the body politic. Woman could not be a witness before a court, and in most states she was excluded from rulership over land and people, though this rule was frequently circumvented, broken, or repealed, for we early meet with women rulers or ruling women, who will be separately treated.