There is certainly some confusion as to the hand on which the marriage-ring was placed. However, in religious symbols of espousal, the distinction of the right hand was certainly kept. In an ancient pontifical was an order that the bridegroom should place the ring successively on three fingers of the right hand and leave it on the fourth finger of the left, in order to mark the difference between the marriage-ring, the symbol of a love which is mixed with carnal affection and the episcopal ring, the symbol of entire chastity.[331] The espousal became the marriage-ring. The esponsais consisted in a mutual promise of marriage, which was made by the man and woman before the bishop or presbyter and several witnesses; after which, the articles of agreement of marriage (called _tabulæ matrimoniales_) which are mentioned by Augustin, were signed by both persons. After this, the man delivered to the woman the ring and other gifts: an action which was termed _subarrhation_. In the latter ages the espousals have always been performed at the same time as the office of matrimony, both in the western and eastern churches; and it has long been customary for the ring to be delivered to the woman after the contract has been made, which has always been in the actual office of matrimony.[332] According to Clemens Alexandrinus, the ring was given, not as an ornament but as a seal to signify the woman’s duty in preserving the goods of her husband, because the care of the house belongs to her. This idea, by the by, is very reasonable, as we shall hereafter show, when speaking of the ritual of the Church of England. The symbolical import of the “wedding ring,” under the spiritual influence of Christianity, came to comprise the general idea of wedded fidelity in all the width and importance of its application.[333] § 6. The first Christians engraved upon their seals symbolical figures, such as a dove, fish, anchor or lyre.[334] The rings used in their fyancels represented pigeons, fish, or, more often, two hands joined together. Clemens of Alexandria, who permitted these symbols, condemns not only the representation of idols, but also of the instruments of war, vases for the table and every thing repugnant to the strictness of the Gospel. A ring, when used by the church, signifies, to use the words of liturgical writers, _integritatem fidei_, the perfection of fidelity and is _fidei sacramentum_, the badge of fidelity.[335]