Notwithstanding the humane enactments of Mohammed in the interest of women, their position steadily declined, such enactments having been overbalanced by the establishment of marriages of dominion, by the growing idea that _sadica_ or _motă_ marriages were not respectable, and that women could not depend upon their relations to take their part against their husbands. The history of religion shows that its growth has always followed the same course as have the ideas concerning the relative importance of the sexes. The god-idea and the fundamental doctrines of religion are always found to be in harmony with the established principles and ideas relative to sex domination and superiority. The religion of Mohammed was essentially masculine, all its principles being in strict accord with male supremacy; it is not, therefore, singular that when the weight of religion was added to the already growing tendency toward _ba’al_ marriages that _sadica_ marriages were doomed. In Arabia, as elsewhere, the duties of the purchased wife were specific. The present which under the older form of marriage had been given to the bride as a love-token, or as an acknowledgment of the husband’s devotion to her, subsequently took the form of a purchase price, and was claimed by her father and brothers as a compensation for the loss sustained by the group through the removal of her offspring, whose services belonged to their mother’s people. In other words, the husband paid a price to the wife’s relations for the right to raise children by her which should belong exclusively to his kin—children which should she remain within her own home would belong to her kindred. The wife was therefore removed to the husband’s _hayy_, where, so far as the sexual relation was concerned, his rights over her were supreme. We have observed that wherever the possessions of the gens continued to be the property of all its members, and were controlled by women, the man at marriage went to live with the woman; so soon, however, as men began to claim the soil, and property began to accumulate in their hands, the wife went to reside with her husband and his family as a dependent. Among various tribes, the form of marriage in use depends on the means of the contracting parties; if the man is able to pay to the woman’s father or brothers the full price charged for her, she goes to him as his slave—she is his property as much as is his dog or his gun; if, however, he is unable to pay the amount charged, he goes to live with her and her family, and becomes their slave.