It gave no right to sell the man again, or to retain him in any event beyond a certain period, or to retain him _at all_, if his friends chose to interpose and redeem him. It gave no right of property in the _man_, any more than the purchase of the unexpired time of an apprentice, or the ‘purchase’ of the poor in the State of Connecticut does. In no proper sense of the word could this be called _slavery_. (5.) The word _buy_ or _purchase_ was sometimes applied to the manner in which a _wife_ was procured. Thus Boaz is represented as saying that he had _bought_ Ruth. ‘Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I _purchased_ (קָנִיהִי _kânithi_) to be my wife.’ Here the word applied to the manner in which Abraham became possessed of his servants, is applied to the manner in which a wife was procured. So Hosea says, (ch. iii. 2,) ‘So I _bought_ her to me (another word, however, being used in the Hebrew, כָּרָה _kârâ_) for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley.’ Jacob purchased his wives, Leah and Rachel, not indeed by the payment of money, but by labour. _Gen._ xxix. 15–23. That the practice of _purchasing_ a wife, or paying a _dowry_ for her, was common, is apparent from _Exod._ xxii. 17; 1 _Sam._ xviii. 25. Compare _Judg._ i. 12, 13. Yet it will not be maintained that the wife among the Hebrews, was in any proper sense a _slave_, or that she was regarded as subject to the laws which regulate property, or that the husband had a right to sell her again. In a large sense, indeed, she was regarded, as the conductors of the Princeton Repertory (1836, p. 293) allege, as the wife is now, as the _property_ of her husband; that is, she was _his_ to the exclusion of the claim of any other man; but she was his as his _wife_, not as his _slave_. (6.) The word ‘_bought_’ occurs in a transaction between Joseph and the people of Egypt in such a way as farther to explain its meaning. When, during the famine, the money of the Egyptians had failed, and Joseph had purchased all the land, the people proposed to become his servants. When the contract was closed, Joseph said to them, ‘Behold, I have _bought_ you —קָנִ֨יהִי— and your land for Pharaoh.’ _Gen._ xlvii. 23. The nature of this contract is immediately specified. They were to be regarded as labouring for Pharaoh. The land belonged to him, and Joseph furnished the people seed, or ‘stocked the land,’ and they were to cultivate it on shares for Pharaoh. The fifth part was to be his, and the other four parts were to be theirs. There was a claim on them for _labour_, but it does not appear that the claim extended farther. No farmers who now work land on shares would be willing to have their condition described as one of _slavery_.