Page:War and Other Essays.djvu/129

Rh between near relatives advantageous, and half-brother and sister by the same father (not mother) might marry. Marriages of persons brought together by affection occurred, but were very rare. Women were married young and their will or choice did not enter into the matter. There was no purchase after the sixth century, but the woman received a dowry from her family, sometimes with a promise to double it if she bore children. If such a dowry was not given, the union was regarded as hardly more than concubinage, because the man could so easily divorce the wife if he had no dowry to restore; hence the dowry was a security for the woman against his caprice. The change from the custom that the suitor pays the father to the custom that the father pays the suitor is undoubtedly due to the fact that suitors became rarer than marriageable girls; for the variations in customs about marriage gifts are always significant of the conjuncture of the interests of the parties. Women who disposed of themselves were those who had no dowry, when the custom was to bring a dowry in marriage. The marriage in Greece was preceded by a formal betrothal. The wedding consisted in the delivery of the bride to the bridegroom by her kurios, the man who had authority over her. No officer of church or state had any function, for the proceeding was entirely domestic and belonged to the family; religious sacrifices were made some days before the wedding, but were incidental, and were made for good fortune.

The distresses of the Peloponnesian war compelled the Athenians to admit to citizenship the nothoi, or children of Athenian men by non-Athenian mothers. There is