SURVIVALS EXIST IN ALL KINDS OF SOCIETIES 165 



Marriage fairs now transformed into kermesses, 

 and still held at Lierre in Belgium and other 

 places appear to have been originally regular 

 markets for the purchase of young women. 1 



The custom of offering the wrong young woman 

 to the bridegroom as his future wife a custom 

 still in vogue in the department of Landes in 

 France formed part of the nuptial ceremonies 

 among the ancient Hindoos, and is probably a 

 vestige of the tricks which were played upon the 

 bridegroom after the purchase of the bride. Several 

 vestiges of this kind may be noticed among the 

 customs of modern peasants. It is by no means 

 infrequent for a wife to be sold by her husband, 

 on the principle that what has been bought may 

 fairly be sold, and the transaction rendered legally 

 binding by being drawn up on stamped paper. 

 This is merely a survival of the old system of 

 marriage by purchase. 



1 "The second Sunday of this fair, which commences on the 

 Sunday after All Saint's Day, is called the veersensmarU (Heifer- 

 fair or market), and the third Sunday is called the brullenmerkt, 

 a name derived from the word brul, and signifying a heifer lowing 

 noisily. The veersensmerkt is the day especially set apart for the 

 young girls who attend the fair to find husbands. The brullen- 

 merkt is the day dedicated to older women as a sort of forlorn hope 

 for those who have hitherto failed to get married. No one seems 

 to know when these "markets " first came to be held. I am more 

 than sixty years old, and they were old when I was young, with 

 this difference only, that in my youth, a young girl who respected 

 herself would not have been seen at the brullenmerkt, which is not 

 the case nowadays." (Taken from a letter from the Secretary of 

 the Commune at Lierre. ) 



