At a very early day it became customary--instead of the _weotuma_ to pay to the guardian a small sum at the betrothal, called in general _arrha_[862]--the _Hand-geld_ of the German writers--accompanied by promises and sureties for the payment of the price of the bride at the _gifta_, or nuptials. Strictly speaking, the _arrha_ was neither a part payment nor even a symbolical payment of the _weotuma_; it was an act by which the real obligation implied by the contract of sale was engendered.[863] The practice of paying the _arrha_ instead of the bride-money at the betrothal led to a change in the character of the marriage contract. "In the time of the folk-laws--from the sixth to the ninth century--we see among all the German tribes a change take place: the witthum, that is the purchase price, is no longer paid to the guardian, that is the seller, but to the bride herself; so that the right of the guardian was practically limited to the receipt of the handgeld, that is to a merely formal fulfilment."[864] Thus, since the property of the wife was subject to the husband's control during his lifetime, the _weotuma_ was really transformed into a provision for the widow, payable only after death from the husband's goods.[865] The _beweddung_ was still a "real contract," but not a "contract of sale."[866] [862] Latin _arrha_, _arra_, or _arrhabo_; Greek ἀρῥᾰβων; Lombard _launichild_, _launegild_, perhaps the same as the German _Lohngeld_. It means "earnest money," and was used by the Romans in connection with bargains; also in general with other real contracts. _Cf._ SMITH, _Dict. Greek and Roman Ant._, I, 193; BINGHAM, _Orig. Ecc._, VII, 311; SCHROEDER, _Rechtsgeschichte_, 290, 295; _idem_, _Güterrecht_, I, 39, 55 ff.; HEUSLER, _Institutionen_, I, 80 ff.; SOHM, _Eheschliessung_, 28; ZOEPFL, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, III, 8 ff., 12-14; DAVOUD-OGHLOU, II, 59 n. 3; LUDLOW, in _Dict. Christ. Ant._, I, 142-44. "Subarrare" is used in the ritual of the Greek church for disposing in marriage: see the ritual in BURN, _Parish Registers_, 141, 142. [863] SOHM, _Eheschliessung_, 28-32, maintains this view against SCHROEDER, _Güterrecht_, I, 39, 40, 55, and others, who regard the _arrha_ as a symbolical payment--a _Scheinpreis_ or _symbolischer Muntschatz_. _Cf._ FRIEDBERG, _Eheschliessung_, 19; "Zur Gesch. der Eheschliessung," _ZKR._, I, 364 ff. [864] SOHM, _op. cit._, 33. [865] _Ibid._ [866] _Ibid._, 34. But FRIEDBERG, _Verlobung und Trauung_, 8-10, insists on the long survival of the sale-contract.