That one made me laugh out loud! I'm glad you said it because I wanted to
point out the humor of it but restrained myself. What I like about the
Social Identity book is (as they're main concern is with social identity)
they point out how we in today's world may find the concept of cowyll as
callous because it puts a price on aspects of "love" (if you will) but that
it actually served a very useful function for both man and woman, as a
protection and a as a way of "saving face" sexually for all involved.
But, yes, the chronic halitosis takes the cake!
Elysia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dewi Evans" <dewi.evans(a)web.de>
To: <POWYS-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 9:17 AM
Subject: Re: [POWYS] Re: Cowyll
I found it quite amusing that a woman could get a divorce because of
her
husbands bad breath. Imaging the field day present solicitors would have
with that one!
> > >> >
> > " and if they [husand and wife] separate before the end of the seventh
> year, let him pay her agweddi and her dowry and her cowyll if she was
given
> as a maiden. And if she leaves her husband before the seventh
year she
loses
> all that except her cowyll and her wynebwerth i discharge of her
gowyn.
If
> her husband is leprous or of stinking breath or cannot copulate
with his
> wife: if because of one of these things she leaves her husband, she is
> entitled to get the whole of what is hers."
> >
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