An unwed mother has the right to seek out the father, but such a right merely provides for the costs of lying in and the infant's food; a married woman becomes subject to the husband's authority: he determines the place of residence, directs the household, repudiates the adulteress wife, shuts her up in a monastery, or later obtains a lettre de cachet to send her to the Bastille; no deed is valid without his authorization; everything the wife brings to the marriage becomes part of the dowry in the Roman meaning of the word; but as marriage is indissoluble, the husband has to die before the wife can recover her property, giving rise to the adage '