SUKVIVALS EXIST IN ALL KINDS OF SOCIETIES 163 



1. The payment made was originally a pecu- 



niary compensation to the family of 

 the captured bride. By degrees, actual 

 capture gave place to mere symbolical 

 capture and then the system of compensa- 

 tion became transformed into the purchase 

 system. 



2. The price. paid for the bride which was origin- 



ally the property of the whole clan under 

 the name of wergdt, became the perquisite 

 of the bride's father. 



3. It next became modified into a marriage 



dowry given to the wife by her husband 

 and the ceremony of purchase became 

 purely symbolical. In the Merovingian 

 period, for instance, the future husband 

 presented the father of the bride with a 

 sou and a denier (marriage per soiidum et 

 denarium). 1 



Other survivals still exist of these three stages 

 in the evolution of marriage. 



(a) In Ukraine, where the signification of the 

 purchase system was purely one of the vira 

 or compensation (wergelt), the bridegroom 

 has to give a present to each member of 

 the bride's family ; this is the custom too 

 in the valleys of the Caucasus where the 



1 Vanderkindere, Condition de ZafemmedVdpoque mtrowngiemie, 

 p. 12. A. Heussler, InslMionen des deutschen Privatrechts, ii. , p. 

 280. 



