BRIDGET’S COMPANIONS AND SUCCESSORS 
the sole owner of the property that had been hers 
before marriage unless she wished deliberately to 
alienate it for the benefit of her husband. Such 
property as was jointly owned by them could not 
be sold or assigned away by the husband without 
her consent. Their rights in the joint property of 
the house or family were equal and the free and 
voluntary consent of both was necessary for its 
disposal. For anyone who has read the recent liter- 
ature of the equal rights for women movement all 
these rights and privileges of the Irishwoman of 
the early Middle Ages cannot but seem almost 
astounding. 
Even more astonishing is it to find that a married 
woman had the right in her own person to pursue 
a case at law and also to recover for a debt. It was 
a peculiarity of the old Gaelic law that if a woman 
levied upon the belongings of a debtor she was sup- 
posed to distrain such things as were appropriate 
for women; such animals for instance as lap dogs or 
sheep; such articles as spindles, mirrors or comb 
bags. If these had belonged to the man’s wife be- 
fore she was married, or if she had brought them 
with her into the marriage contract as was usually 
the case, then these could only be distrained for the 
personal debt of the wife. Indeed such articles of 
industry as her distaff, her loom, spinning wheel and 
spindles were considered somewhat in the light of 
a working man’s tools in the modern time and could 
not be distrained. 
The Irish law with regard to property held by a 
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