The feeling of caste was very strong; a woman must not marry below her station.[308] By a law of the Visigoths she who tried to marry her own slave was to be burned alive[309]; if she attempted it with another's bondman, she merited one hundred lashes.[310] The dowry was a fixed institution as among the Romans; but the bridegroom regularly paid a large sum to the father or guardian of the woman. This _wittemon_ was regarded as the price paid for the parental authority (_mundium_) and amounted among the Saxons to 300 _solidi_.[311] As a matter of fact this custom practically amounted to the intended husband giving the dowry to his future wife. The husband was also allowed to present his wife with a donation (_morgengabe_) on the morning after the wedding; the amount was limited by King Liutprand to not more than one fourth of all his goods.[312] Breaking an engagement after the solemn betrothal had been entered into was a serious business. The Visigoths refused to allow one party to break an engagement without the consent of the other; and if a woman, being already engaged, went over to another man without her parent's or fiancé's leave, both she and the man who took her were handed over as slaves to the original fiancé.[313] The other barbarians were content to inflict a money fine for breach of promise.[314] [Sidenote: Power of the husband.] The woman on marrying passed into the power of her husband "according to the Sacred Scriptures," and the husband thereupon acquired the lordship of all her property.[315] The law still protected the wife in some ways. The Visigoths gave the father the right of demanding and preserving for his daughter her dowry.[316] The Ripuarians ordained that whatever the husband had given his wife by written agreement must remain inviolate.[317] King Liutprand made the presence of two or three of the woman's male relatives necessary at any sale involving her goods, to see to it that her consent to the sale had not been forced.[318] [Sidenote: Divorce.]