Salic Law

Another chapter relating to sex involved the fornication of maidservants or slaves. A freeman fornicating with another's maidservant had to pay the maidservant's master 600 denarii. Anyone fornicating with the king's maidservant had to pay double the price. If a freeman publicly married another's maidservant then he would remain with her in slavery. The same policy was for a freewoman marrying a servant. The Salic law portrays that marriage was a sacramental bond and only people in the same social standing should marry within. The laws regarding the marriage of a slave or maidservants were made so the people of the society would play the right roles. Slaves and maidservants were allowed to marry each other but only with the master's consent. If he did not receive the master's consent then he would either get whipped or pay 120 denarii to the maidservant's master.

To show that women were worth of some value in the community, the men had to pay ring-money for marriage to a widow. If a man decided to marry a widow he would take her to court and have three witnesses. To officially take the widow he had to have three solidi or equal weight and a denarius. The witnesses had to weigh the solidi to make sure it was the correct amount. If he did not follow this procedure then he had to pay 2500 denarii. If the man fulfilled the tasks according to the law then he would give three solidi and one denarius to whoever the ring money belonged to. First it would go to the nephew and if there was no nephew then it would be given to the eldest son of the niece. If there was no niece's son then it would be passed down to the son of an aunt. This process of finding a man to receive the money followed until the sixth generation. If there was no man beyond the sixth generation then the ring money was confiscated by the public treasury. This idea of the ring money only going to the men of the family portrayed that women were not seen as financially responsible. The women were not allowed to handle money. The men were more educated than women so they took care of this aspect.

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