s of his race, in accordance
with special rites which had come down to him from his father; he made
at the tombs of his ancestors, at such times as were customary, the
offerings and prayers which assured their repose in the other world, and
his powers were as extensive in civil as in religious matters. He had
absolute authority over all the members of his household, and anything
undertaken by them without his consent was held invalid in the eyes of
the law; his sons could not marry unless he had duly authorized them
to do so. For this purpose he appeared before the magistrate with the
future couple, and the projected union could not be held as an actual
marriage, until he had affixed his seal or made his nail-mark on the
contract tablet. It amounted, in fact, to a formal deed of sale, and the
parents of the girl parted with her only in exchange for a proportionate
gift from the bridegroom. One girl would be valued at a silver shekel by
weight, while another was worth a mina, another much less;* the handing
over of the price was accompanied with a certain solemnity. When the
young man possessed no property as yet of his own, his family advanced
him the sum needed for the purchase. On her side, the maiden did not
enter upon her new life empty handed; her father, or, in the case of
his death, the head of the family at the time being, provided her with
a dowry suited to her social position, which was often augmented by
considerable presents from her grandmother, aunts, and cousins.**

* Shamashnazir receives, as the price of his daughter, ten
shekels of silver, which appears to have been an average
price in the class of life to which he belonged.

** The nature of the dowry in ancient times is clear from
the Sumero-Assyrian tablets in which the old legal texts are
explained, and again from the contents of the contracts of
Tell-Sifr, and the documents on stone, such as the Micliaux
stone, in which we see women bringing their possessions into
the community by marriage, and yet retaining the entire
disposition of them.

The dowry would consist of a carefully marked out field of corn, a grove
of date-palms, a house in the town, a trousseau, furniture, slaves, or
ready money; the whole would be committed to clay, of which there
would be three copies at least, two being given by the scribe to the
contracting parties, while the third would be deposited in the hands of
the magist