The custom of giving a compensation for a bride, though not universal, exists or has existed among a vast number of peoples in various stages of progress; and it often survives as a mere symbol in the marriage ceremony. Kulischer, indeed, declares that actual wife-purchase can now be discovered only among a few savage races.[575] But this assertion seems to be wholly inconsistent with the facts. Recent researches, notably those of Post, Kohler, Westermarck, and various American scholars, place it beyond question that taking a wife, as the prosaic result of an ordinary bargain, is a familiar institution in many parts of the world.[576] Husband-purchase also appears, but examples of it are exceedingly rare.[577] Several methods of buying a wife are in use. The simplest way, says Westermarck, is "to give a kinswoman in exchange for her." This method is found in Sumatra;[578] and the Australian male "almost invariably obtains his wife or wives, either as the survivor of a married brother, or in exchange for his sisters, or later on in life for his daughters."[579] Much more general is the custom, sometimes distinguished with the name of "marriage by service," in which the bridegroom earns his bride by serving her father. "This practice, with which Hebrew tradition[580] has familiarized us, is widely diffused among the uncivilized races of America, Africa, Asia, and the Indian Archipelago."[581] In America, as elsewhere, the custom takes a variety of forms. Among the Mayas the young husband is required to build a house opposite the home of his bride and live in it five or six years while he works for her father. If the service is not faithfully performed, he is dismissed, and the father-in-law gives his daughter to another.[582] In Yucatan the term of service is three or four years; and so stringent is the requirement that it is regarded as highly unseemly to shirk the duty.[583] According to Martius, with whom Souza mainly agrees,[584] the Brazilian native usually gains his first wife by serving her father. For him he goes hunting and fishing. He helps him build his hut, clear the forest, bring wood, and make canoes, weapons, and nets. During this period the lover continues to dwell with his own relatives, but tarries the whole day at the house of his wished-for bride.[585] If his suit is successful, either he may take up his abode for a while with his wife's family, or he may at once set up a separate hut for himself. Among the Guaycurûs the son-in-law dwells permanently with the woman's parents, but from the moment of the marriage they avoid speaking with him; and this custom of "bashfulness," often regarded as a survival of wife-capture and so indirectly of mother-right, prevails very widely in America and in other lands.[586] Service, though merely as proof of manly worth, appears also among the Seri, "probably the most primitive tribe in North America." The "would-be groom is required to enter the family