This was at first replaced by the
custom of giving wedding presents to the bride; afterward the opposite
custom was introduced of the bride bringing her _dot_ to the
bridegroom.

A singular transition between these two systems is constituted by
simulated purchase, in which the bridegroom offers presents to the
bride's parents, which are afterward returned to him. Among certain
savages the bride's parents return the purchase money of their
daughter to the bridegroom in another form. Such restitution was often
the origin of the _dot_.

Among the Romans the _dot_ became the property of the husband, and
from this is derived the modern custom which usually gives the husband
the right to administer his wife's _dot_, which remains the property
of the wife and her family.

Among the Mexicans, where divorce for conjugal discord is frequent,
and among certain Mahometans, division of property exists in marriage,
and the wife's property is returned to her when she is separated or
divorced.

In Europe at the present time, especially under the influence of
French customs, there is established a kind of marriage by inverse
purchase (which already existed among the Greeks), in the sense that
the parents of young girls obtain husbands for them by means of a
large _dot_. Westermark concludes this subject with the following
words: "If she does not possess special personal attractions, a young
girl without a _dot_, at the present day, runs a great chance of not
getting married. This state of things is quite naturally developed in
a society where monogamy is legally enforced; where women are more
numerous than men; where many men never marry, and where married women
too often lead a life of idleness." If we add to this: "in a society
where Mammon rules as absolute master," the picture will not be
wanting in accuracy.

NUPTIAL CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES

In primitive races where the wife is simply bought like merchandise,
often after mutual agreement, nuptial ceremonies do not exist. They
generally originate later from the symbols of a form of marriage since
abandoned. The ceremony being concluded and the marriage recognized as
legal, it is followed by feasting. Certain religious ceremonies are
generally combined with marriage. The customs of our modern marriages
arise from the same source. At the time of early Christianity there
were no religious ceremonies and even up till the year 1563, the date
of the end of the Council of Trent,