Why not contend that the _wives_ of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their "chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch; and thence deduce the rights of modern husbands? Alas! Patriarchs and prophets are followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities! Refusing so to do, is questioning the morality of those "good old patriarchs and slaveholders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the Syriac, the common expression for "the espoused," is "the bought." Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of _marriages_ in the old German Chronicles was, "A BOUGHT B." The word translated _buy_, is, like other words, modified by the nature of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, "I have _gotten_ (bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is _bought_. "He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to _buy_) the remnant of his people." So Ps. lxxviii. 54. "He brought them to this mountain which his right hand had _purchased_," (gotten.) Jer. xiii. 4. "Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) Neh. v. 8. "We of our ability have _redeemed_ (bought) our brethren that were sold to the heathen." Here "_bought_" is not applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken _out_ of it. Prov. 8. 22. "The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. xix. 8. "He that _getteth_ (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." Finally, to _buy_ is a _secondary_ meaning of the Hebrew word _Kana_.