Buy marriage

When buying marriage a marriage is called, in which the wife has a subordinate position to the husband who has the character of a maid. Their rights are correspondingly low. The purchase marriage occurred in different cultures.

In Roman family law, the head of the family had special power over all family members, especially over the wife. In the libral act , the future husband pays a symbolic "purchase price" of an ace to the father in the presence of five witnesses . In early Roman times, the marriage was probably actually consummated as a purchase. In the time of the Republic this was as coemptio designated (purchase) form of manus marriage less and less frequently practiced. At the latest in the imperial period , the Manushe was completely out of use.

Private-law cuneiform documents from Assyria about the legal institutions of marriage and purchase as well as the law of obligations, including purchase marriages, are documented. However, the scientists do not agree on whether this was a bride price in the sense of Roman law.

Wives held a minor position among the old Prussians . She was treated like a maid who did not dine at the man's table. After the husband's death, the widow fell to the son, like other inheritance.

In Swiss territory , the purchase marriage was already regulated in Germanic tribal law: the man acquired the power of disposal over the woman through the purchase price.