The views lying at the base of these regulations of the law about the various forms of marriage were transparent. Here, as everywhere, the Brahmans are, above all, to be favoured. The learned Brahman is to receive the girl from her father "adorned," _i.e._, no doubt, well equipped. The Brahman, who officiates at the sacrifice, receives her as a gift; in this way the father and the daughter have the happy prospect of obtaining a blessing for ten or seven members of the family upwards and downwards. But other forms of marriage--by purchase, inclination, abduction--the law wishes to prevent, from which we may conclude that these forms of marriage were in existence, a fact sufficiently established by other evidence. The time, it is true, was long gone by when the Aryan brothers had only one wife; in the Epos only do we find traces of this custom. Draupadi is the wife of the five sons of Pandu; and in the Ramayana the brothers Rama and Lakshmana are attacked with the reproach--fictitious, it is true--that they have only one wife between them. The abduction of maidens and wives is more frequent in the Epos. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma carries off the three daughters of the king of the Kaçis and marries the two younger to his step-brother Vijatravirya; Jayadaratha, the prince of the Indus, lifts Draupadi into his chariot and drives away with her, though her guardian cries out to him, that according to the custom of the Kshatriyas he cannot carry her off till he has conquered her husband in battle. It is skill in arms and strength which gains their wives for the heroes of the Epos. Arjuna wins Draupadi because he can bend the bow of her father, the king of the Panchalas (p. 87). Rama wins Sita by mastering the bow of Çiva. We also see in the Epos that princes allow their daughters the free choice of a husband, and the suitors appear on a definite day. Thus Kunti chooses Pandu for her husband; Damayanti, in her father's hall, places the garland of flowers on Nala's neck, and declares that he is her husband. The Greeks tell us that among the Cathæans, a tribe of the Panjab, young men and maidens chose each other for marriage. The purchase of brides is also mentioned in the Epos. Bhishma purchases the daughter of the prince of the Madras for Pandu with gold and precious stones. In ancient times, we can hardly doubt, purchase of the bride was the rule, except in the case of princes, and those who carried off their wives or gained them in battle.[319] The children, according to the conceptions peculiar to primitive conditions, belong to the father; he must be recompensed for the loss, and receive some return for the services which his daughter can no longer render him. If the law declares that form of marriage to be permissible in which a pair of cattle (a bull and a cow) are given--it is true with the addition, "for religious objects"--we may conclude that this was the customary price, and the law attempts to