the bride and bridegroom themselves appear as the contracting parties, the right of assent now belonging to the parent or guardian. The legal conditions are thus reversed. [669] POST, _Familienrecht_, 166-71, 163, 157 ff. [670] In such cases the right of betrothal belongs either to the parents, to the families, or to particular relatives, as, for instance, to the mother, eldest brother, or maternal uncle of the bride: POST, _Familienrecht_, 162-64, 166, 167; _idem_, _Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtslebens_, 32, 33. See WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 213-15, notes, for examples. In West-Australia the consent of the whole tribe is necessary to a girl's marriage: WESTERMARCK, 215; KOHLER, in _ZVR._, III, 357 ff.; VI, 398. [671] According to POST, _Familienrecht_, 205, the purpose is always _Familienverbindungen anzuknüpfen_; and usually the betrothed bride is held strictly to a life of chastity, even among peoples where such is not the custom for girls: POST, _op. cit._, 212, 213; LIPPERT, _Geschichte der Familie_, 149, 150. Of this, good examples are found in the South Sea: KOHLER, "Studien," _ZVR._, V, 356; see also STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 212, 256, 257; WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 78-80; POST, _Geschlechtsgenossenschaft_, 80; _Ursprung_, 57; _Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtslebens_, 35; _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_, I, 365-71; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 213, 214. On early betrothals see further KOHLER, in _ZVR._, V, 342, (Aleuts); VI, 166 (Burma); VII, 352 (Australia), 372 (New Guinea); X, 99-103, 116 (Bombay); XI, 164 (India); SPENCER AND GILLEN, _Native Tribes of Cent. Australia_, 558. [672] POST, _Familienrecht_, 213. Of course, in case of breach, the parents or other contracting parties are subject to fine, damage, or restitution, in a variety of ways: _ibid._, 214; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 224. [673] POST, _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_, I, 362, 363, gives many examples. _Cf. idem_, _Familienrecht_, 167. [674] This is the rule among Jackuts, the Sarts of Turkestan, and the southern Slavs: POST, _op. cit._, 167, 168; KRAUSS, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, 320. [675] POST, _op. cit._, 168, 169. [676] Such is the case among the Menangkabaw Malays of Sumatra; and, according to Burmese law, the woman who has once been married has no guardian: POST, _op. cit._, 169. [677] POST, _op. cit._, 169. Free marriage in one or the other of these forms is very widely diffused, though it may not always be possible to determine the exact legal relation of the guardian and the betrothed.[678] Sometimes self-betrothal and contract by the guardian are found side by side. Such is the case in Rotuma; and among the Turks of middle Asia the conventional marriage, in which the couple are contracted by their fathers in childhood, is found in connection with natural marriage which rests upon the vows of the betrothed.[679]