Note 1043 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW

Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, 5, 478. This important and very interesting book throws much new light on the position of woman in the Middle Ages. The convent was a refuge from the "tyranny" of the family; and the author believes that the desire for independence was a survival of the "mother-age." The woman saint is thus a successor of the "tribal goddess" and the "heathen prophetess."