the occasion of a betrothal. The bridegroom puts a small piece of money on the shoes of his bride, another on her knee, a third on her shoulder, a fourth on her head. It is only when this ceremony has been performed that the father delivers the maiden into the hands of her future husband.
I have already mentioned the fact that the payment made in Old Russia by the bridegroom was known under the name of “veno”. The true meaning of this word is revealed by the use which is made of it by the translators of the Scriptures. In a Slavonic version of the words addressed by Jacob to Laban, when he asked him for the hand of his daughter Rachel, the translators write as follows: “Increase the sum of the veno as much as you like and I will pay it to you, and you shall give me this maiden to wife”.[1]
In modern times the veno is mentioned only in certain wedding-songs. Another term, “kladka,” has replaced it in most parts of Great Russia. This payment, amounting in certain parts of Russia to the sum of one hundred, and even of two or three hundred roubles, is made to the father of the bride. As a rule, the father disposes of the money in favour of his daughter, for he gives her as dowry a larger or smaller sum, according to what he has received from the bridegroom. But this fact cannot be brought forward as a proof that the “kladka” belongs by right to the bride. In more than one commune of the government of Tambov, Riasan, Vladimir, Moscow, Samara, and Saratov, no mention is made of the dowry given by the bride’s father, whilst the kladka is regularly paid to the head of family to which the bride belongs.[2] We must therefore consider these two payments, that made by the bridegroom, and that made by the bride’s father, as quite different institutions. The one payment proves the existence, at least in certain parts of modern Russia, of a mode of marriage similar to that of the Indian Asura; the other shows the way in which the
