[632] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 396; DUBOIS, _A Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India_ (Madras, 1862), 102; _cf._ BURNELL AND HOPKINS, _op. cit._, 49 n. 2.
The custom of rendering a compensation for a wife, Aristotle tells us, was prevalent in ancient Greece.[633] The bride-price consisted of "countless gifts;"[634] and in the Homeric age a maid was called "one who yields to her parents many oxen as presents from her suitor."[635] The Roman marriage by _coemptio_ was a conveyance of the bride to the bridegroom through the mancipatory process in essentially the same way as a slave or an ox was sold. Gaius calls it an "imaginary sale;"[636] and it is usually regarded as a reminiscence of actual wife-purchase among the primitive Romans or their ancestors.[637] Moreover, in marriage by _usus_ the husband gained full control of the wife by a year's prescription, exactly as in the case of any property.[638]
[633] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_, II, viii. Compare HRUZA, _Ehebegründung_, 8 ff.
[634] ἥδνα ἀπερείσια: _Iliad_, xvi, l. 178; _Odyssey_, xix, l. 529. _Iliad_, xi, ll. 244 f., mentions one hundred oxen as the price. _Cf._ LEIST, _op. cit._, 128; SCHRADER, _Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_, 381, 382.
[635] "Alphesiboia": _Iliad_, xviii, l. 593; _cf._ WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 396; and SCHRADER, _op. cit._, 381.
[636] POSTE, _Gaius_, I, 113, 88, and the editor's notes, 89 ff.
[637] It is so regarded by SOHM, _Institutes of Roman Law_, 361 n. 3; by WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 397; SCHRADER, _op. cit._, 382. ROSSBACH, _Die römische Ehe_, 65 ff., 93, 145, 245 ff., holds that there was one original form from which both _coemptio_ and _confarreatio_ were derived, and that it combined purchase with religious elements. KARLOWA, _Die Formen der röm. Ehe_, 1 ff., 45., criticises Rossbach and holds that it remains to be proved that _coemptio_ is a survival of real purchase, it being more likely a particular use of _mancipatio_ arising perhaps under Servius Tullius; but LEIST, _op. cit._, 128 ff., rejects this view and favors the theory of survival. LANGE, _Römische Alterthümer_, I, 105, 106; and BERNHÖFT, _Römische Königszeit_, 186, are in practical agreement with Karlowa. _Cf._ POSTE, _Gaius_, 89 ff.; MUIRHEAD, _Private Law of Rome_, 441-43, who rejects the theory of survival; LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 149, 150; MONLEZUN, _Femme mariée_, 28-30.