land, where the functions of the tribal council were imposed on the Laird. The old laws lay down — "Na widow sould be compelled to marie gif sche please to live without ane husband ; but sche sould give securitie that sche sail not marie without consent of her lord, gif sche holds of ane other than the king." And in Benbecula, we are told, when a tenant dies, MacNeill provides the widow with a husband.[1]
I would, however, lay special stress on the fact that the widow is not allowed to select her second husband. In most cases the disposal of her hand rests with the kinsfolk of her late husband. Even in historical times in Greece, the second marriage of the widow was arranged according to the will and testament of her first husband ; her own wishes being consulted as little as in the case of virgins [2] ; and, as it will be remembered that Penelope is represented to have been a Spartan maiden, it is even more to the present purpose to point out that the Levirate prevailed at Sparta.[3]
We are now, I venture to think, in a position to examine the case of Penelope in the light of the foregoing facts. The Homeric Greeks, as we know, usually purchased their brides, or, what amounts to much the same thing, the bride was given by her father in return for services rendered, without demand of the bride-price ; or, again, as a prize for some special skill or valour, as Odysseus by one form of the legend won his wife in a foot-race.[4] However he may have acquired her, she would be considered as a chattel, and her fate after the death of her husband would rest with her
- ↑ Pennant, Second Tour in Scotland ; Pinkerton, Voyages, vol. iii., pp. 325, 606.
- ↑ Becker, Charicles (ed. 1895), pp. 167, 478.
- ↑ Müller, Dorians, vol. ii., p. 205.
- ↑ Apollodorus, iii., 10, 9; Pausanias, iii., 12, 2. "We must hold with Aristotle that in the heroic age the purchase of wives was a reality, not, as Schömann thinks, a mere ceremonial survival." Smith, Dictionary of Antiquities (3rd ed.), vol.i., p. 691.
