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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