marrying
by the penny." The similarity in the methods of procuring wives and
servants, in the terms employed in describing the transactions, and in
the prices paid for each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of
wives (virgins) and servants was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and
Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and
servants was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems
to have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the
Israelitish female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and
masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If
_buying_ servants proves them property, buying wives proves _them_
property. Why not contend that the _wives_ of the ancient fathers of the
faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and
thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and
prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to
their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies
in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to
do, is questioning the morality of those "good old slaveholders and
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

[Footnote A: In the verse preceding, Boaz says, "I have _bought_ all
that was Elimelech's * * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the
same word (_kana_) is used in both verses. In the 9th, "a parcel of
land" is "bought," in the 10th a "wife" is "bought." If the Israelites
had been as profound at inferences as our modern Commentators, they
would have put such a fact as this to the rack till they had tortured
out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives as property and
speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.]

[Footnote B: This custom still prevails in some eastern countries. The
Crim Tartars, who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives,
during which they live under the same roof with them and at the close of
it are adopted into the family.]

This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac,
the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late
as the 16th century, the common record of _marriages_ in the old German
Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B."

The word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the nature
of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have _gotten_
(bought) a man from the Lord." She named h