It sometimes happens that a father or mother has two or three daughters, where the eldest daughter is maimed, being blind, or lame, or deaf, or mute, while the other sisters are perfect in shape and beauty and speech. When a man begins to sue for their daughter, and he sends his mother, or sister, or someone else in whom he has confidence to inspect her, the parents sometimes substitute the second or third daughter for their maimed sister, giving her the name of the latter, so that the inspectress, not knowing the deceit, takes a liking to the girl and reports to the groom that she is a proper person to marry. Then the groom, depending upon her words, has a parley with the girl’s parents, that he is to marry her upon an appointed day, and that the parents are to give her to him upon the appointed day, and the fine is set so high that the guilty party is not able to pay it. When the wedding takes place, the parents turn over to him the maimed daughter, whose name is given in the articles of marriage, but who is not the one the inspectresses had seen. But the groom cannot discover on the wedding day that she is blind, or disfigured, or has some other defect, or that she is deaf or mute, for at the wedding she is veiled and does not say a word, nor can he know whether she is lame, because her bride’smaids lead her under her arms. But in that case the man who has been deceived complains to the Patriarch and authorities, and these take the articles of marriage and institute an inquiry among the neighbours and housefolk, each one individually, whether the person he had married is the one indicated by name in the marriage articles. If so, the articles are valid, and no faith is to be put in his contention, on the ground that it was his business to be sure whom he was going to marry. But if the neighbours and housefolk depose that the bride is not the same as mentioned by name in the articles, the married pair is divorced, and the parents have to pay a large fine and damages to the groom, and besides the father is beaten with the knout, or his punishment is even more severe, according to the Tsar’s will. The same punishment is meted out to the man who presents his serving maid or a widow in place of his unmarried daughter, by giving her another name and dressing her up so as to look like his daughter, or when his daughter is of short stature and they place her on a high chair in such a way that her defect is not noticeable. When parents have maimed or old daughters, and no one wants to marry them, they are sent to a monastery to be shorn nuns.