With the half-civilised tribes of Guatemala and Nicaragua conjugal unions were also determined according to the presents made to the parents, and in Guatemala the young people were both kept in ignorance of the affair until the last moment.[308] In Nicaragua, however, there existed a curious exception in certain towns, where at a particular festival the young girls had the right to choose their husbands freely from among the young men present.[309] With the Moxos and the Guaranis the price paid to the parents is still the decisive reason of the marriage.[310] However, the Guaranis also exact from the husband proofs of virile qualities in the chase and in war.[311] The struggle for existence is still severe, and in order to keep one or more wives a man must be able not only to feed but to defend them. The Mongols of Asia buy their wives exactly like the Mongoloids of America, of whom I have just spoken. Among the nomad Mongols, the Tartars of northern Asia, the parents arrange the marriages with absolute authority, and without consulting the parties more especially interested. The bargain is sharply debated between the parents, and the price to be paid by the husband or his family is very precisely settled; the future couple are not even informed of it, their sentiments, their desires, or dislikes, are not considered in the least. The price of the girl is paid in cattle, sheep, oxen, or horses; in pieces of stuff, in brandy, in butter, in flour, etc. Everything being agreed on, the contract of sale is drawn up before witnesses, but the girl is only delivered to the purchaser after the ceremony of marriage, which, as we have previously seen, takes the form of capture.[312] The Turcomans have customs very similar to those of the Tartars. With them the price of the girl is chiefly reckoned in camels, and it generally takes five to pay for a girl; but as in their eyes the woman is not an object of luxury, as she not only has to manage the housekeeping but to manufacture articles which have an exchange value, and which are profitable to the family, experienced women and widows, provided they are passable, are much more sought for in the conjugal market than young girls. It is no longer five camels, but fifty, or even a hundred, that must be paid for a widow still in good condition.[313] If the suitor cannot immediately get together the price of the woman he covets, he has recourse to marriage by capture, and takes refuge with his bride in a neighbouring camp. A settlement is always effected, matters are compounded, and the ravisher engages to pay a certain number of camels and horses, which he generally procures by marauding on the frontiers of Persia. It is a veritable debt of honour for him, and he must pay it with the least possible delay.[314]