[704] So among the Kafirs: Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country (London, 1857), 49: Westermarck, op. cit., 402; and among other tribes: ibid., 402, note.
[705] Compare the remark of Wake, op. cit., 199, who, in speaking of purchase in its relations to polygyny, says: "It may be doubted whether the ideas which govern such a transaction (wife-purchase) are very different from those which guide persons under similar circumstances in monogamatic societies. When the savage buys a girl to be his wife, it is for the purpose of having, if not a companion, a helpmate, and a mother of his children, and her father parts with her for those objects."
[706] Accordingly, it is sometimes regarded as a disgrace to marry without payment of the bride-price; and the girl takes pride in the amount she brings to her father. For examples see Wake, op. cit., 183, 191; Bancroft, Native Races, I, 277, 349, 350; Powers, Tribes of California, 22, 56.
[707] Kohler, "Die Gewohnheitsrechte des Pendschabs," ZVR., VII, 227. Cf. Tupper, Punjab Customary Law, III, 9, who gives the decision referred to; and Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, 46, 47.
[708] We have here the case of an "appointed daughter." The son of a "brotherless maiden" was sometimes reserved to be the heir of her father, not of her husband. How could a man marry such a brotherless girl and secure himself in the possession of his child, to continue his own hearth-worship? This might be effected by payment of the "official" price of one hundred cows and one wagon (Wagen), and this was so even in the later period when the law-books frowned upon wife-purchase: Leist, op. cit., 110 n. 10, 127 n. 3, 130, 131, and the references to the ancient law-books there given.
[709] Westermarck, op. cit., 397.
[710] Compare Sarasin, Die Weddas von Ceylon, I, 460, 461. Sometimes girdles (Lendenschnuren) are exchanged by bride and groom. Free courtship exists; and this primitive people presents a notable example of the pairing-family. The English author DeButts naïvely remarks, "The savage Veddahs live in pairs like the beasts of the forest": Sarasin, op. cit., I, 549.
[711] Such is the case among the Ainos of Yesso and the Brazilian Puris, Coroados, and Coropos: Westermarck, op. cit., 397, 398. Among the Polynesians the present seems to be designed to gain the good-will of the wife's parents, but when the wife's family is the inferior in rank, the husband, though rendering the wooing-gift, receives a dower with his bride: Wake, op. cit., 390. On the "wooing-gift" see Post, Familienrecht, 173, 175; idem, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, I, 342 ff.; Kohler, in ZVR., V, 356; Koehne, ibid., IX, 461 (Kalmucks); Hildebrand, Ueber das Problem, 17 ff., who, as already noted, regards gift as preceding purchase; and Crawley, Mystic Rose, 386 ff., who holds that "the so-called bride-price was originally of the same class as the kalduke, a pledge, a part of one's self, given to another and received from him."
[712] Among the Seri the woman has much liberty of choice: "certainly she holds the power of veto, ostensible if not actual." During the preliminary courtship she occupies a position of great dignity. "When all parties concerned are eventually satisfied a probationary marriage is arranged, and the groom leaves his clan and attaches himself to that of his bride. Two essential conditions—one of material character and the other moral—are involved in this probationary union; in the first place the groom must become the provider for, and the protector of, the entire family of the bride." For a year he thus shows his "skill in turtle-fishing, strength in chase, subtlety in warfare, and all other physical qualities of competent manhood.... During the same period the groom shares the jacal and sleeping robe provided for the prospective matron by her kinswomen, not as a privileged spouse, but merely as a protecting companion; and throughout this probationary term he is compelled to maintain continence—i. e., he must display the most indubitable proofs of moral force." To this kind of service the character of wife-purchase is denied: McGee, "The Seri Indians," XVII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., Part I, 279 ff.
[713] For these and other examples see Kohler, "Studien," ZVR., V, 342, 351, 353; Post, Familienrecht, 176-79; idem, Ursprung des Rechts, 65; idem, Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtslebens, 55; Bancroft, Native Races, I.