so that in case of widowhood they cannot re-marry, unless the second husband indemnifies the family of the first.[1]
In Brahmanic India the daughter is also bought from the parents. A curious verse of the Code of Manu tells us how the purchaser was indemnified in the case of substitution of another person: "If, after having shown a suitor a young girl, whose hand is granted to him, another is given him to wife, and secretly brought to him, he becomes the husband of both for the same price; such is the decision of Manu."[2] Things have not much changed at present. "When they wish to signify that they are going to be married," says an editor of Lettres édifiantes, in speaking of the Hindoos, "they generally say that they are going to buy a wife." However, the parents do not appropriate the entire sum paid by the purchaser; a great part of it goes to buy jewels for the bride.[3] The ancient Malays of Sumatra had solved the conjugal problem in three different ways. Sometimes the man bought and led away the woman, according to the universal custom; sometimes the woman bought the man, who then came to live with her family; sometimes the two were married on a footing of equality.[4] We must note in passing that this last matrimonial form is very exceptional.
Throughout Europe, as well in Greco-Latin antiquity as among barbarians, the young girl has formerly been considered as a negotiable property, and marriage as a sale.
The Sagas tell us that the Scandinavian fathers married their daughters without consulting them—after the manner of savages—and received an indemnity from the son-in-law.[5]
With the Germans the daughter could not marry without the authorisation of her father or of her nearest relative, who first received the earnest money from the bridegroom;[6] as for the bride, she received the oscle, or price of the first kiss, and then the morgengabe, which constituted her dowry.
