embody the custom into its system by the additional proviso, that the price is to be given "for religious objects." But the turn thus given in the law to the purchase of the bride was slow in being carried out, and was never carried out thoroughly. The Greeks at one time maintain that among the Indians the bridegroom gave the father a yoke of oxen; at another, that in contracting a marriage nothing was given or taken.[320] The custom of giving a pair of oxen for the bride follows from the rites of marriage still in existence,[321] and even now it is found in some regions of India. Marriage from inclination is also not regarded with favour in the law; such marriages might easily endanger the order of the castes, and introduce mixed connections. Still as the law allows the purchase of the bride under a very slight cover, so it allows the girl the free choice of a husband in exceptional cases. It is a father's duty to have his daughter married, for in the order of things she is intended to be a mother. If in three years after the daughter is of age for marriage the father makes no provision for giving her to a proper husband, she may choose a husband for herself out of the men of her caste; neither she nor the husband thus chosen are guilty in this matter. But the ornaments which she has received from her father, mother, and brothers she may not, in this case, carry into her new home; in doing so she would commit a theft. On the other hand, the husband whom she chooses has not to make any presents; the father has lost his right over his daughter by keeping her back beyond the time at which she could be a mother.[322]