[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE DECAY OF MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE. THE MARRIAGE PORTION
It has often been said that the position of women is the surest gauge of a people’s civilization. This assertion, though not absolutely, is approximately true. The evolution of altruism is one of the chief elements in human progress, and consideration for the weaker sex is one of the chief elements in the evolution of altruism.
According as more elevated ideas regarding women grew up among the so-called civilized peoples, the practice of purchasing wives was gradually abandoned, and came to be looked upon as infamous. The wealthier classes took the first step, and poorer and ruder persons followed their example. It is of no little interest to follow the course of this process.
In India, in ancient times, the Âsura form, or marriage by purchase, was lawful for all the four castes. Afterwards it fell into disrepute, and was prohibited among the Brahmans and Kshatriyas, but it was approved of in the case of a Vaiśya and of a Śudra. Manu forbade it altogether.[2428] “No father who knows the law,” he says, “must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring.”[2429] Purchase survived as a symbol only in the Ârsha form, according to which the bridegroom sent a cow and a bull or two pairs to the bride’s father.[2430] Manu expressly condemns those who call this gift a gratuity;[2431] hence the Ârsha form was counted by Manu and other lawgivers as one of the legitimate modes of marriage.[2432] The Greeks of the historical age had ceased to buy their wives; and in Rome, confarreatio, which suggested no idea of purchase, was in the very earliest known time the form of marriage in force among the patricians. Among clients and plebeians also, the purchase of wives came to an end in remote antiquity, surviving as a mere symbol in their coemptio.[2433] Among the Germans, according to Grimm, it was only Christianity that abolished marriage by purchase.[2434] Laferrière and Koenigswarter think it prevailed among the Saxons as late as the reign of Charles the Great, and that in England it was prohibited by Cnut.[2435] In Lex Alamannorum, Lex Ripuariorum, ‘Grâgâs,’ and the Norwegian laws, real purchase money is not spoken of; and there is reason to believe that the “mundr,” mentioned in the elder ‘Gula-lag’ had gradually lost its original meaning of price for a bride.[2436]
In the Talmudic law, the purchase of wives appears as merely symbolic, the bride-price being fixed at a nominal amount.[2437] The Mohammedan “mahr” is also frequently merely nominal.[2438] Among the Finns, the purchase of wives had disappeared in the remote times when their popular songs originated.[2439] Though it still was usual for a bridegroom to give presents to his bride and her parents, passages in the songs indicate that not even the memory of a real purchase survived.[2440] In China, although marriage presents correspond exactly to purchase-money in a contract of sale, the people will not hear of their being called a “price”;[2441] which shows that, among them also, some feeling of shame is attached to the idea of selling a daughter.
We may discern two different ways in which this gradual disappearance of marriage by purchase has taken place. It has been suggested that the sum with which the bridegroom bought the bride became a payment for the guardianship of her.[2442] However this may be, the purchase-money became in time smaller and smaller, and took in many cases the form of more or less arbitrary presents. Only a relic of the ancient custom, as we have seen, was left, often appearing as a sham sale in the marriage ceremonies. Another mode of preserving the symbol of sale was the receipt of a gift of real value, which was immediately returned to the giver. This arrangement is said by Âpastamba to have been prescribed by the Vedas “in order to fulfil the law”—that is, the ancient law by which the binding form of marriage was a sale.[2443] Generally, however, not the same but another gift is presented in return. Thus, at Athens, at some time which cannot be determined, but which was undoubtedly earlier than the age of Solon, the dower in the modern sense arose; and, as has been suggested,[2444] this portioning of the bride by her father or guardian very probably implied originally a return of the price paid. Again, in China, exchange of presents takes place between the guardians of the bridegroom and the guardians of the bride; and this exchange forms the subject of a long section in the penal code, for, “the marriage articles and betrothal presents once exchanged, the parties are considered irrevocably engaged.”[2445] In Japan, the bride gives certain conventional presents to her future husband and his parents and relatives, and, as to the value of these presents, she should always be guided by the value of those brought by the bridegroom.[2446] Among the ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, the wife in her turn presented the husband with some kind of arms, and this mutual exchange of gifts formed the principal bond of their union.[2447] Grimm also suggests that the meaning of the Teutonic dowry was partly that of a return gift.[2448]
On the other hand, the purchase-sum was transformed into the morning gift and the dotal portion. A part—afterwards the whole—was given to the bride either directly by the bridegroom or by her father. Manu says, “When the relatives do not appropriate for their use the gratuity given, it is not a sale; in that case the gift is only a token of respect and of kindness towards the maidens.”[2449] This gift was called “çulka,” or her fee; but its close connection with a previous purchase appears from the fact that it passed in a course of devolution to the woman’s brothers, and one rendering of the text of Gautama which regulates this succession, even allowed the fee to go to her brothers during her life.[2450] In modern India, according to Dubois, men of distinction do not appropriate the money acquired by giving a daughter in marriage, but lay it out in jewels, which they present to the lady on the wedding-day.[2451] Among the Greeks of the Homeric age, the father did not always keep the wedding-presents for his own use, but bestowed them, wholly or in part, on the daughter as her marriage portion. At a later period, the bridegroom himself gave the presents to his wife, when he saw her unveiled for the first time, or after the νὺξ μυστική.[2452] Among the Teutons the same process of development took place. Originally, the purchase-sum went to the guardian of the bride, partly, perhaps, to her whole family; but by-and-by it came to be considered her own property,[2453] as Tacitus says, “Dotem non uxor marito sed uxori maritus offert.”[2454] This was the case among the Scandinavians at the date of the inditing of their laws, and among the Langobardi from the seventh century.[2455] “La dot,” says M. Ginoulhiac, “n’est autre chose que le prix de la coemption en usage dans la loi salique; elle fut donnée à la femme au lieu de l’être à ses parents, qui ne reçurent plus que le solidum et denarium, ou le prix fictif, et après la mort de l’épouse, une partie de la dot.”[2456] In Lex Alamannorum and Lex Ripuariorum, only a dos which the wife receives directly from her husband is spoken of.[2457] And it seems probable that the morning gift, which has survived very long in Europe,[2458] originated in the purchase-sum, or formed a part of it,[2459] though it has often been considered a pretium virginitatis.[2460] According to ancient Irish law, a part of the “coibche,” or bridal gift, went to the bride’s father, or, if he was dead, to the head of her tribe;[2461] but another part was given by the bridegroom to the bride herself after marriage. The same was the case with the Welsh “cowyll”;[2462] and the Slavonic word for bride-price, “vĕno,” came to be frequently used for dos.[2463]
Speaking of the ancient Babylonians, Herodotus says that “the marriage portions were furnished by the money paid for the beautiful damsels.”[2464] Among the Hebrews, as it seems the “mohar,” or a part of it, was given to the bride herself.[2465] We read in the Book of Genesis that Abraham’s servant “brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebecca: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things.”[2466] Professor Robertson Smith is inclined to believe that, in Arabia, before Mohammed, a custom had established itself by which the husband ordinarily made a gift—under the name of “sadâc”—to his wife upon marriage, or by which a part of the “mahr” was customarily set aside for her use.[2467] But under Islam the difference between “mahr” and “sadâc” disappeared, the price paid to the father becoming the property of the woman.[2468]
But it is not only in the history of the great civilized nations that we find marriage by purchase falling into decay. Among several peoples who are still in a savage or semi-civilized state, the custom of purchasing the wife has been modified, and of a few it is expressly stated that they consider such a traffic disgraceful.[2469] The change has taken place in exactly the same way as we have seen to be the case with higher races.
On the one hand, the purchase has become more or less a symbol. In some cases the gift no longer represents the actual value of the girl, in others it is followed by a return gift. Thus, in Oregon, “the wife’s relations always raise as many horses (or other property) for her dower, as the bridegroom has sent the parents, but scrupulously take care not to turn over the same horses or the same articles.”[2470] The Ahts consider it a point of honour that the purchase-money given for a woman of rank shall, some time or other, be returned in a present of equal value.[2471] Similar statements are made with reference to the Patagonians,[2472] Mishmis,[2473] and certain tribes in the Indian Archipelago.[2474] Among the Bagobos of the Philippines, if the newly-married couple are satisfied with each other, the father of the wife gives the half of the purchase-sum back to the husband;[2475] whilst, in Saraë, the girl’s father, at the wedding, has to return even five times the price which he received from the bridegroom’s father at the espousals, the return gift, however, becoming the common property of the married couple.[2476] Among the Badagas of the Neilgherries also, the return gift is generally greater in value than the sum which has been paid for her.[2477] Several other peoples contract marriages by an exchange of presents.[2478]