and gift, and I will
give according as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David
purchased Michal, Saul's daughter, and Othniel, Achsab, the daughter of
Caleb, by performing perilous services for the benefit of their
fathers-in-law. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27; Judges i. 12, 13. That the purchase
of wives, either with money or by service was the general practice, is
plain from such passages as Exod. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Among
the Jews of the present day this usage exists, though it is now a mere
form, there being no _real_ purchase. Yet among their marriage
ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The coincidences, not
only in the methods of procuring wives and servants, and in the terms
employed in describing the transactions, but in the prices paid for
each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and
servants was the same. Compare Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Exod. xxii. 17,
with Lev. xxvii. 2-8. The _medium_ price of wives and servants was the
same. Compare Hosea iii. 2, with Exod. xxi. 2. Hosea appears to have
paid one half in money and the other in grain. Further, the Israelitish
female bought-servants were _wives_, their husbands and their masters
being the same persons. Exod. xxi. 8, and Judges xix. 3, 27. If _buying_
servants among the Jews shows that they were property, then buying
_wives_ shows that _they_ were property. The words in the original used
to describe the one, describe the other. 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. How far gone is the Church from primitive purity! How slow to
emulate illustrious examples! 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! Surely professors of religion now, are
_bound_ to buy and hold their wives as property! Refusing so to do, is
to question the morality of those "good old" wife-trading "patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," with the prophets, and a host of whom the
world was not worthy.

The use of the word buy, to describe the procuring of wives, is not
peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac language, the common expression
for "the married," or "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as
the 16th century, the common recor