Whatever its essential character, there is abundant evidence of the widespread existence of sale-marriage among the Teutonic nations. Tacitus, who was struck by a custom so much at variance with the Roman practice of his day, has given in the eighteenth chapter of the _Germania_ the earliest description of a _beweddung_. "The wife," he says, "does not offer a _dos_ to the husband, but the husband offers one to the wife. Parents and relatives are present; they approve the gifts, not seeking those trifles which are pleasing to women, nor those with which a newly wedded bride is adorned; but oxen, a bridled horse, and a shield with sword and spear. For these gifts the wife is obtained, and she, in turn, brings something of arms to her husband. These they regard as the highest bond, the most mysterious sacra, the gods of marriage."[847] In this passage the essential character of the _weotuma_, that is the gifts, is clearly recognized; and though the historian represents it as being paid to the bride, it is probable that in this particular he is mistaken, and that, in accordance with the early practice, it was really paid to the guardian,[848] for it is very unlikely that the stage of the dower had already been reached. [847] "Dotem non uxor marito, sed uxori maritus offert. Intersunt parentes ac propinqui; probant munera, non ad delicias muliebres quaesita, nec quibus nova nupta comatur, sed boves et frenatum equum et scutum cum framea gladioque. In haec munera uxor accipitur, atque invicem ipsa armorum aliquid viro affert. Hoc maximum vinculum, haec arcana sacra, hos conjugales deos arbitrantur."--TACITUS, _Germania_, c. 18. [848] SCHROEDER, _Güterrecht_, I, 24 ff., 82, 83, has shown that this is probable; and such is the view of GRIMM, _Rechtsalt._, 423, 424. ZOEPFL, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, III, 4, believes Tacitus, "vermengt unverkennbar die verschiedenen Gaben, welche nach den Volksrechten des folgenden Zeitraumes unter der Bezeichnung als _pretium_ und Morgengabe hervortreten, wovon die eine dem Vater oder Vormund der Frau, und die andere dieser selbst gebührte;" and the arms given by the bride to the bridegroom he identifies with the later well-known ceremony of "girding" the youth on reaching majority. _Cf._ on this passage also HEUSLER, _Institutionen_, II, 277; THUDICUM, _Der altdeutsche Staat_, 148, 186; LABOULAYE, _Cond. des femmes_, 113; SIEGEL, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, 452; GIDE, _Étude sur la cond. privée de la femme_, 205 ff.; FICKER, _Untersuchungen zur Rechtsgeschichte_, III, 416-19, 394, believes Tacitus here describes correctly the _Vidumsehe_, the marriage in which the _Vidum_ or price came to the woman herself.