United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We can see the growth of purchase-marriage in the service demanded by the parents of the bride, this taking the place of the earlier custom of the bridegroom proving his fitness by some test of strength. Again, those stories in which the arrangement of the marriage remains with the mother or with the girl, and not with the father, must be regarded as the older versions.
As we have seen, it was regarded as a condition, not so much of the marriage itself, but of the transference of the wife to the home of the husband and of the children to his kindred. The change was, of course, effected slowly; and often we find the two forms of marriage the maternal and the purchase-marriage occurring side by side.
What, however, is certain is that the purchase-marriage in the struggle was the one that prevailed. This reversal in the form of the marriage brought about a corresponding reversal in the status of women. This is so plain. The women of the family do not now inherit property, but are themselves property, passing from the hands of their father to that of a husband.
Word Of The Day