(M332) Without this bride-price the young man could not take a wife. Hence it was expressly secured to him by the Code, if his father died before he was of age to marry, and reserved as a first charge on the father’s estate. There is some evidence that a woman might make this present to her future husband. But that may have been because he was too poor to make it himself and she found him the means. As a rule, the parents gave this money to the bride. But we are not in a position to say whether they did so at once, on the consummation of the marriage, or on the birth of a child. The suggestion that it was her _Morgengabe_ remains without support. Certain it is that it was not returned always. In the contracts it seems to be given to the bridegroom with the bride. On a wife dying without children, the husband was bound to return her marriage-portion to her family. But if the bride-price which he had given for her had not been returned to him, he could deduct its value. On a divorce, he was bound to let his wife have not only her marriage-portion, but the bride-price paid back to him. If there had been none, he must give her a fixed sum instead of it. (M333) From the phrase-books we may gather that there was a sort of ceremony about presenting the bride-price to the father: it was placed on a salver and brought in before the parents.(264) This was probably a part of the ceremony of betrothal. If the father rejected the suitor, he was bound to return the bride-price offered.(265) A curious section of the Code enacts that if the suitor’s comrade intrigued to break off the match, he was excluded from marrying the girl himself.(266) (M334) If, after he had brought in the bride-price to his prospective father-in-law, the suitor took a fancy to another girl, he might withdraw from the suit. But he then forfeited what he had offered. If this really was the result of having taken a dislike to a plain girl, we may suppose that such a maiden might accumulate several bride-prices and so acquire some wealth. This may explain Herodotus’s idea that the handsome girls made a dowry for the plain ones. But there is not a shred of evidence for their doing so in the way he suggests. A girl was a virgin when she was married.(267) (M335) Of interest in the later Babylonian texts is the fact that the preliminaries of the marriage are more fully illustrated. Thus we read of the wedding of the daughter of Neriglissar:(268) Nabû-shum-ukîn, the _êrib bîti_ of Nabû, judge of Êzida, spoke to the King Neriglissar, saying thus: “Give to me Gigîtum, your young daughter, to wife.” The tablet has only preserved a few lines, from which we cannot be sure that the marriage took place. The tablet was called a duplicate of Êzida, showing that it was preserved in the Nabû temple at Borsippa. The following case is one of the clearest:(269) (M336)