A widow who married again lost the privilege of guardianship over her children, who thereupon passed to a male relative of the first husband.  As to the dowry of the prior union the woman must make it over at once to her children according to some laws or, according to others, might receive the usufruct during life and leave it to the children of the first marriage at her death.  Any right to the property of her first husband she of course lost.[349] When there was no issue of the first marriage then the dowry and nuptial donations could usually follow her to a second union.

[Sidenote:  Criminal law pertaining to women.]

Criminal law among these half civilised nations could not but be a crude affair.  Their civilisation was in a state of flux, and immediate practical convenience was the only guide.  They were content to fix the penalties for such outrages as murder, rape, insult, assault, and the like in money; the Visigoths alone were more stringent in a case of rape, adding 200 lashes and slavery to the ravisher of a free woman who had accomplished his purpose.[350] Some enactments which may well strike us as peculiar deserve notice.  For example, among the Saxons the theft of a horse or an ox or anything worth three solidi merited death; but murder was atoned for by pecuniary damages.[351] Among the Burgundians, if a man stole horses or cattle and his wife did not at once disclose the deed, she and her children who were over fourteen were bound over in slavery to the outraged party “because it hath often been ascertained, that these women are the confederates of their husbands in crime."[352]

The most minute regulations prevailed on the subject of injury to women.  Under the Salic law[353] for instance, if a free man struck a free women on the fingers or hand, he had to pay fifteen solidi; if he struck her arm, thirty solidi; if above her elbow, thirty-five solidi; if he hit her breast, forty-five solidi.  The penalties for murdering a free woman were also elaborated on the basis of her value to the state as a bearer of children.  By the same Salic law[354] injury to a pregnant woman resulting in her death merited a fine of seven hundred solidi; but two hundred was deemed sufficient for murder of one after her time for bearing children had passed.  Similarly, for killing a free woman after she had begun to have children the transgressor paid six hundred solidi; but for murdering an unmarried freeborn girl only two hundred.  The murder of a free woman was punished usually by a fine (wergeld) equal to twice the amount demanded for a free man “because,” as the law of the Bavarians has it,[355] “a woman can not defend herself with arms.  But if, in the boldness of her heart (per audaciam cordis sui), she shall have resisted and fought like a man, there shall not be a double penalty, but only the recompense usual for a man [160 solidi].”  Fines were not paid to the state, but to the injuried parties or, if these did not survive, to the nearest kin.  If the fine could not be paid, then might death be meted to the guilty.[356]