There is nothing that she
and her husband recollect through life with so much pride and
pleasure as the cost of their marriage, if it happen to be large for
their condition of life; it is their _amoka_, their title of
nobility;[3] and their parents consider it their duty to make it as
large as they can. A man would hardly feel secure of the sympathy of
his family, tribe, circle of society, or rulers, for the loss of 'his
ox, or his ass, or anything that is his', if it should happen to have
cost him nothing; and, till he could feel secure of their sympathy
for the loss, he would not feel very secure in the possession. He,
therefore, or those who are interested in his welfare, strengthen his
security by an outlay which invests his wife with a tangible value in
cost, well understood by his circle and rulers. His family, tribe,
and circle have received the purchase money, and feel bound to secure
to him the commodity purchased; and, as they are in all such matters
commonly much stronger than the rulers themselves, the money spent
among them is more efficacious in securing the exclusive enjoyment of
the wife than if it had been paid in taxes or fees to them for a
marriage licence.
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