Droit du seigneur

Vasily Polenov: Le droit du Seigneur (1874).
A nineteenth-century artist's painting of an old man bringing his young daughters to their feudal lord.
The Mugnaia in Ivrea

Droit du seigneur (/ˈdrɑː də seɪˈnjɜːr/; French pronunciation: ​[dʁwa dy sɛɲœʁ]), also known as jus primae noctis (/ʒʌs ˈpraɪmiː ˈnɒktᵻs/; Latin pronunciation: [ju:s ˈpri:mae̯ 'nɔktɪs]), refers to a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, and elsewhere, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with subordinate women on their wedding night. There is no evidence of the right being exercised in medieval Europe, and all known references to it are from later time periods.[1][2]

Terminology

The French expression droit du seigneur translates as "right of the lord", but native French prefer the terms droit de jambage (French pronunciation: ​[dʁwa d(ə) ʒɑ̃.baʒ]) ("right of the leg") or droit de cuissage (French pronunciation: ​[dʁwa d(ə) kɥi.saʒ]) ("right of the thigh"). The term is often used synonymously with jus primae noctis,[3] Latin for "right of the first night".

Historical references

Herodotus mentions a similar custom among the Adyrmachidae in ancient Libya: "They are also the only tribe with whom the custom obtains of bringing all women about to become brides before the king, that he may choose such as are agreeable to him."[4]

The medieval marriage fine or merchet has been interpreted as a payment for the droit de seigneur to be waived.[2]

The supposed right was abolished by Ferdinand II of Aragon in Article 9 the "Sentencia Arbitral de Guadalupe" of 1486.[5]

In 1527, Scottish historian Hector Boece wrote that the right had existed in Scotland until abolished by Malcolm III.[6] William Blackstone mentioned the custom in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), echoing Boece's claim.[7]

The right was mentioned in 1556 in the Recueil d'arrêts notables des cours souveraines de France of French lawyer and author Jean Papon (1505–1590).[8] Voltaire mentioned the practice in his Dictionnaire philosophique, published in 1764.[9]

In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in 1884, Friedrich Engels argued the "right of first night" had an anthropological origin.[10] Paolo Mantegazza, in his 1935 book The Sexual Relations of Mankind, stated his belief that while not a law, it was most likely a binding custom.

In eighteenth-century France, a number of writers perpetuated other myths pertaining to the supposed power of the overlords during the Ancien Régime, such as the droit de ravage (right of ravage; providing to the lord the right to devastate fields of his own domain), and the droit de prélassement (right of lounging; it was said that a lord had the right to disembowel his serfs to warm his feet in).[11]

As late as the nineteenth century, some Kurdish chieftains (khafirs) in Anatolia reserved the right to bed Armenian brides on their wedding night.[12][13]

In the Hawaiian Islands, marriage in the Western sense did not exist until the arrival of Christian missionaries; there was no word for husband or wife in the Hawaiian language. The privilege for chiefs was often observed, according to "Sexual Behavior in Pre Contact Hawai‘i" by Milton Diamond.[14] A young girl's parents viewed the coupling with favor.[15] If she were lucky, she might conceive his offspring and be allowed to keep it. When western ships arrived, young girls and wives eagerly coupled with sailors who, given their weapons and large ships, may be gods.[16]

In modern times Zaire's president Mobutu Sese Seko appropriated the droit de cuissage when traveling around the country where local chiefs offered him virgins; this was considered a great honor for the virgin's family.[17]

Cultural references

References

  1. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica().
  2. 1 2 3 The jus primae noctis as a male power display: A review of historic sources with evolutionary interpretation by Jörg Wettlaufer - Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol 21, Nr. 2 (2000): 111-123
  3. ↑ "jus primæ noctis". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ↑ Herodotus, iv.168 (on-line text).
  5. ↑ Boureau 239.
  6. ↑ Boureau 17-18.
  7. ↑ Commentaries on the Laws of England, volume 2, chapter 6.
  8. ↑ Boureau 203.
  9. ↑ Boureau 41.
  10. ↑ Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884, pp 28, 72-73.
  11. ↑ Péricard-Méa, Denise (2005). Le Moyen âge. Editions Jean-Paul Gisserot. p. 90. ISBN 9782877478236.
  12. ↑ Barsoumian, Hagop. "The Eastern Question and the Tanzimat Era" in The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 200. ISBN 0-312-10168-6.
  13. ↑ Astourian, Stepan. "The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power", in A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, eds. R.G. Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman Naimark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 60.
  14. ↑ (Revista Española del Pacifico. 2004. 16: 37-58)
  15. ↑ (Pukui, Haertig, and Lee, 1972, p. 91; Sahlins, 1985, p. 24)
  16. ↑ (Pukui, Haertig, and Lee, 1972, p. 92)
  17. ↑ David van Reybrouck. Congo: The Epic History of a People. HarperCollins, 2012. p. 384f. ISBN 978-0-06-220011-2.
  18. ↑ "1". Tractate Ketubot. p. 3b. אמר רבה דאמרי בתולה הנשאת ביום הרביעי תיבעל להגמון תחלה
  19. ↑ http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800581h.html
  20. ↑ 1984 - Part 1, Chapter 7. George Orwell. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  21. ↑ Classen, Albrecht (2007). The medieval chastity belt: a myth-making process. Macmillan. p. 151.

Bibliography

External links

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