THE WORLD'S DERT TO THE IRISH
women’s rights but women's intellectual and artistic
development and especially that cult of taste which
means so much for the creation of beautiful things.
The more one knows about old Irish customs and
laws with regard to women the easier it is to realize
that the development of education for women as it
developed under St. Bridget, was only a natural out-
come of the conditions of women’s lives in Ireland.
According to law the women were in many ways the
equals of the men but according to custom they were
in many ways their superiors. First and most unus-
ual in the world of that time, the Irish woman was
wooed for herself; she had the right to make up her
own mind as to whom she should marry. This right
was very preciously conserved and faithfully exer-
cised. By marriage the woman did not become as
was the case among nearly all peoples at that time
the property of her husband but a partner of his in
the matrimonial adventure that they jointly under-
took. Irish law made the husband the more import-
ant partner but did not abrogate his wife's rights.
The Irish expression with regard to marriage was,
“it was contracted between them.”
It is extremely interesting, now that strenuous
efforts are being made to secure the passage of the
twentieth amendment to the Constitution guarantee-
ing equal rights to women, to find that most of what
it is thus hoped to gain for the modern woman in
our advanced twentieth century was assured to the
Irish women fifteen centuries ago. For instance
according to the old Gaelic law the wife remained
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