[205] Hobhouse regards this dowry as being the original property of the wife in the forms of the bride-price. Revillout and Müller accept the much more probable view, that the dowry was fictitious, and was really a charge on the property of the husband to be paid to the wife if he sent her away.
[206] Paturet, La Condition juridique de la femme dans l'ancienne Égypte; p. 69.
[207] Nietzold, Die Ehe in Aegypten, p. 79.
[208] Études égyptologiques, livre XIII. pp. 230, 294; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 210.
[209] Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 204.
[210] Simcox, op. cit.; Vol. I. pp. 210-211, citing Revillout; Cours de droit, p. 285.
[211] This is the view of Simcox, op. cit., pp. 210-211.
[212] Hobhouse, Vol. I. p. 185 (Note).
[213] Les obligations en droit égyptien, p. 82; quoted by Simcox, op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 209-210.
[214] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27. The whole passage is: "Contrary to the received usage of other nations the laws permit the Egyptians to marry their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death, never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between married couples by the terms of the dowry-contract that the man shall obey the woman." The brother-sister marriages, referred to by Diodorus, which were common, especially in early Egyptian history, are further witness to the persistence among them of the customs of the mother-age.