The law, which can never rise superior to the prevalent sense of right in a given community, recognized the validity of these child marriages, in these several countries, just as it validated the “sale marriages” of the old Saxon days[59] and in early feudal times recognized the validity of exactions known as “Maiden-rent,” a sum paid to the Lord of the Manor, in the nature of a fine, in consideration of his relinquishment of his accustomed right of spending the first night with the bride of his tenant.[60] As the relics of a barbarous age, such licentious customs, like the evidences of genius and depravity frequently found co-existent in the same individual, are interesting from a historical standpoint, as existing facts connected with the given institutions of a past age and also because many of the ancient customs, in altered form, furnish the basis for the later customs and practices, gradually changed, with the passing years, to meet the different conditions and institutions of later periods. The custom of giving a dowry, or marriage portion, which has obtained from an ancient period, is no doubt the result of the old practice of paying for the wife in money, the presents, land, or sums paid by way of settlement being a mere modification of the old sale and purchase of the bride by the husband.[61] In patriarchial days, we find Shechem, the son of Hamer, negotiating with old Jacob and his sons, for the marriage of Dinah and he said unto them: “Ask me never so much dowry and gift and I will give according as ye shall say unto me; but give me the damsel to wife.”[62] The _donatio propter nuptias_,[63] of the Romans, and the old marriage dowry, the source of so much legislation and litigation in ancient England, France and other continental countries, is traceable, directly or indirectly to this old practice. Indeed, the oldest known laws treat of the marriage dowry, as we find that the code of Hammurabi, written 2250 years before Christ provided for the return of the dowry, in case of the divorcement of a barren wife.[64] Money was given the bride, from an early day in France, and we find that when Clovis married the Princess Clotilde, he sent, by proxy, a sou and a denier, which became by law, the usual marriage offering, in that country.[65] Caesar speaks of the marriage settlement, as a custom he found to exist amount the ancient Gauls;[66] it obtained among the Hebrews, at an early date[67] and has come to be a part of the marriage laws of most of the civilized countries.[68] Under the old Angle-Saxon law, dower could be assigned only at the church door.[69] Speaking on this subject, Littleton says: “When he cometh to the church door to be married there, after affiance and troth plighted, he endoweth the woman of his whole land, or of the half, of other lesser part thereof, and there openly doth declare the quantity and the certainty of the land she shall have for her dower.”[70]