If a man seduced the wife of another, he was compelled, by an early Saxon law, to pay a fine to the husband, and to procure for him another woman, whom he was to remunerate for admitting him to her bed.[292] This was not only offering a direct premium to prostitution by providing for the debauching of a woman every time another chose to be seduced, but it shows that females were in the habit of cohabiting with men for hire. The fines for adultery were graduated according to the rank of the woman. If she happened to be the wife of a nobleman, her chastity was valued at the moderate sum of six pounds sterling (about thirty dollars); while the wife of a churl brought to her husband as a salve for his injured honor about a dollar and a half. The effect of these enactments could not but exercise a demoralizing and injurious influence on the manners of the people. They reduced the estimate of female chastity to that of a cheap marketable commodity, whose loss could be repaid by a small money compensation. By the laws of Ethelbert a man was permitted to buy a wife, provided the purchase was made openly, and many such transactions are recorded, the price being sometimes paid down in money, and sometimes in palfreys and other kinds of property. The practice, however, was soon modified, and it became necessary to obtain the consent of the bride. The husband was compelled to support and protect her, and to treat her with respect. A couple desirous of contracting marriage were formally betrothed in presence of the priest, and this practice, having something of an ecclesiastical obligation without any of its legal force, was frequently productive of the same evil consequences as in Norway at the present day. This custom of betrothal prevailed down to the time of Elizabeth. The Normans introduced into England, if not a higher standard of morals, at least a greater refinement in vice. Their laws were moulded by the spirit of the feudal system which they imported with them. Under their sway society was divided into two classes--feudal lords and their vassals. The lord could dispose of the person and property of the vassal, limited, indeed, by certain restrictions, but still leaving so much power in his hands as to render the latter a virtual slave.