generally accepted, but it has by no means gone unchallenged.[843] Ethically and historically, as suggested in the preceding chapter, the rise of a legal distinction between the purchase of property in the wife and the acquirement of authority over her is highly important. But, practically, when the powers of the husband are so great as they were among our ancestors, there can be little difference in popular conception between possession of the _mund_ and ownership of the woman.[844] As a matter of fact, the old English laws speak bluntly of "buying a maid;"[845] and in Germany "to buy a wife" was a familiar phrase for marriage throughout the Middle Ages.[846] [837] BRUNNER, _Rechtsgeschichte_, I, 72, 73, and the sources there cited. The former existence of wife-capture among the Germans is also held by SIEGEL, _Rechtsgeschichte_, 450; HEUSLER, _Institutionen_, II, 280; SCHULENBURG, _Die Spuren des Brautraubes_, 10 ff.: BERNHÖFT, _Frauenleben_, 8 ff.; LAMPRECHT, _Deutsche Geschichte_, 97 ff., 107 ff.; SEHLING _Unterscheidung der Verlöbnisse_, 29; OPET, _Die erbrechtliche Stellung der Weiber_, 16 ff.; COLBERG, _Ueber das Ehehinderniss der Entführung_ (Leipzig, 1869), 25. [838] DARGUN, _Mutterrecht und Raubehe_, 111-25, critically examines these passages. The fact that a marriage effected by rape or abduction is often treated as valid, even when the purchase price is not paid, is especially urged as evidence of the survival of customary wife-capture. Thus in ÆTHELBERHT, 82, 83; ÆLF., 8; ÆTHELRED, VI, 26, 39: SCHMID, _Gesetze_, 9, 75, 231, 301, a penalty is exacted in such cases, though the marriage appears to be valid. But is it not simpler to explain this on grounds still familiar to all? The suggestion of the text seems to be sustained by the materials collected by WEINHOLD, _Deutsche Frauen_, I, 308-15. _Cf._ JEAFFRESON, _Brides and Bridals_, I, 12-31. [839] _Beweddunge_ is the Anglo-Saxon term, and it is so used in the old English formulary of the tenth century: SCHMID, _Gesetze_, Anhang, VI, 390. It means the act of "contracting" or "pledging," associated with the verb _beweddian_, "to contract": SCHMID, 535, 536. It has the same origin as the modern "wed," "wedding," etc. On the _beweddung_ see SIEGEL, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, 450 ff.