Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-12
Time Was When Men Were Per-
mitted to Muzzle Their Wives.
A CUSTOM NOW OUT OF DATE
Severe Punishment for ScoIds and
Scandal Mongers.
BRAN KS AND Bird L E S
Written for The Evening Star.

Written for The Evening Star
Women wore muZzles long centuries be-
fore dogs were so Inundated. and the cam
paign taunt of wearing some mans col
lar is a fact and not fiction. The toy
terrier of today that goes shifting nervously
round, wearing 'bridle,' has 1t patterned
very much after the one that his mistress
ancestress wore-not during the dark ages,
but less than a hundred years ago The
difference is that dogs are muZZ1ed to keep
them from chewing up people, and women
were muzzled to keep them from punctur-
Ing regulations and to restrain them from
scolding!
Imagine a man Of the present day VINO
because his wife has lambasted him for
staying too late at the club who reads
him the riot act for any cause, taking her
to the Commissioners and complaining of
her as a 'scod" and nuisance to the
community" and asking that she be given
the limit of the law for her offense! Or.
supposing him to be a man of means, just
contemplate the possibility of his having a
muZZle made purposely to fit his wife, and
II she got obstreperous, rushing to the door
and calling in strapplng big policeman,
who claps the muzZle on the poor wife,
while the husband holds her, and she IS
then chained to the floor or the wall. DR..
Wilson. III his prehistoric Annals of Scot
land mentions the Drank as a Scottish
instrument of ecclesiastical punishment for
coercion of scolds and slanderous gossips"
And these hung in the churches beside the
pulpits
A Custom of the Day.
Matthew Lowndes tells of the queer old
houses built in England in 1862. in which
We're large f1replaces. AT one side of these
fireplaces was a large hook. and fastened
to it long chain. AT the end of the chain
was one of the customs of that not over
refined day, and it seems to have been ac-
cepted the proper thing. There was no
provision of like character made for the
man who rendered the atmosphere Opaque
with his profanity, or who came home
drunk to beat his wife and children, or who
spent his small earnings over the gaming
table. leaving his family in want and mis-
cry, but the poor wife who objected in too
vigorous language to these iniquities got
plenty.
In England and Scotland.
Oddly enough. this muzzle was used al
most exclusively in England and Scotland.
Ireland was too chivalric to use the instru-
ment Of torture. letting her women have
equal rights with men in the use Of their
tongues. The Drank" as this feminine
muzzle was surnamed. is mentioned in liter
AZURE as being found in Edinburgh In 1867,
at Glasgow in 1914, at Sterling in 1900 at
Macclesfield in Cheshire in 1928 and was
used in that town as late as 1856. By that
date its purpose had changed greatly, how
ever, and 1t was used to quiet its scarlet
women The Drank does not seem to have
been authorized by law at any time, but
is constantly referred to In the literature
of the day and seems to have been common
enough between the middle of the sixteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth CEN
turtles, for one meets with illusions to it in
all the corporation and municipal records
of the larger cities of England and Scot
land. There are some twenty-five of these
branks in existence today in the various
museums of England.
In the very early days in Boston
'scold's bridle'' was known to exist there,
presumably for the witches Later. however,
they used split green sticks and clothes
pins. In 1871 Sarah Morgan struck her hus-
band. He complained to the constables and
wife Sarah was ordered to stand with a
gag in her mouth at public town meeting