Mohammed improved on the barbaric method and discovered a way by which not some but _all_ females could be buried alive without being murdered—namely, the veil. Its origin was one of the marriage affairs of the prophet with its appropriate revelation from Allah. _The veil was unknown in Arabia before that time._ It was Islam that forever withdrew from Oriental society the bright, refining, elevating influence of women. Keene says that the veil “lies at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation.” The harem-system did not prevail in the days of idolatry. Women had rights and were respected. In two instances, beside that of Zenobia, we read of Arabian _queens_ ruling over their tribes. Freytag in his Arabian Proverbs gives a list of female judges who exercised their office in the “time of ignorance.” According to Nöldeke, the Nabathean inscriptions and coins prove that women held an independent and honorable position in North Arabia long before Islam; they constructed expensive family graves, owned large estates, and were independent traders. The heathen Arabs jealously watched over their women as their most valued possession and defended them with their lives. A woman was never given away by her father in an unequal match nor against her consent. “If you cannot find an equal match,” said Ibn Zohair to the Namir, “the best marriage for them is the grave.” Professor G. A. Wilken[52] adduces many proofs to show that women had a right in every case to choose their own husbands and cites the case of Khadijah who offered her hand to Mohammed. Even captive women were not kept in slavery, as is evident from the verses of Hatim: “They did not give us Taites, their daughters in marriage; But we wooed them against their will with our swords. And with us captivity brought no abasement. They neither toiled making bread nor made the pot boil; But we mingled them with our women, the noblest, And bare us fair sons, white of face.” Polyandry and polygamy were both practiced; the right of divorce belonged to the wife as well as to the husband; temporary marriages were also common. As was natural among a nomad race, the marriage bond was quickly made and easily dissolved. But this was not the case among the Jews and Christians of Yemen and Nejran. Two kinds of marriage were in vogue. The _mota’a_ was a purely personal contract between a man and woman; no witnesses were necessary and the woman did not leave her home or come under the authority of her husband; even the children belonged to the wife. This marriage, so frequently described in Arabic poetry, was not considered illicit but was openly celebrated in verse and brought no disgrace on the woman. In the other kind of marriage, called _nikah_, the woman became subject to her husband by capture or purchase. In the latter case the purchase-money was paid to the bride’s kin.