To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
NIef is a Woman that is bound, or a Villain Wo∣man: but if she marry a Free∣man, she is thereby made free, because she and her Husband are but one person in Law, and she ought to be of the same nature and condition in Law to all intents as her Husband is; but her Husband is free to all intents without any condition in Law, or otherwise; and so by
consequence the Wife ought to be, and is free according to the nature of her free Husband. And then if she were once free, and clearly discharged of Bon∣dage to all intents, she cannot be Nief after without special act done by her, as Divorce, or Con∣fession in Court of Record, and that is in savor of Liberty. And therefore a Free woman shall not be Bound by taking of a Villain to her Husband; but their Issue shall be Villains as their Father was: which is contrary to the Civil Law, for there it is said, The Birth follows the Belly.
Bondage or Villainage had beginning amongst the He∣brews, and its original of Cha∣naan the son of Cham, who, because he had mocked his fa∣ther Noe to scorn, lying dis∣solutely when he was drunk, was punished in his son Cha∣naan with penalty of Bon∣dage.