It is not often realized that women held a high place in southern European societies in the 10th and 11th centuries. As a wife, the woman was protected by the setting up of a dowry (彩礼) or decimum. Admittedly, the purpose of this was to protect her against the risk of desertion, but in reality its function in the social and family life of the time was much more important. The decimum was the wife"s right to receive a tenth of all her husband"s property. The wife had the right to withhold consent, in all transactions the husband would make, and more than just a right: the documents show that she enjoyed a real power of decision equal to that of her husband. In no case did the documents indicate any degree of difference in the legal status of husband and wife.
The wife shared in the management of her husband"s personal property, but the opposite was not always true. Women seemed perfectly prepared to defend their own inheritance against husbands who tried to exceed their rights, and on occasion they showed a fine fighting spirit. A case in point is that of Maria Vivas, a Catalan woman of Barcelona. Having agreed with her husband Miro to sell a field she had inherited for the needs of the household, she insisted on compensation. None being offered, she succeeded in dragging her husband to the scribe (法学家) to have a contract duly drawn up assigning her a piece of land from Miro"s personal inheritance. The unfortunate husband was obliged to agree, as the contract says, "for the sake of peace." Either through the dowry or through being hot-tempered, the Catalan wife knew how to win herself, with the context of the family, a powerful economic position. A decimum was ______.