The ἔγγραφος γάμος implied a fully drawn-out contract of marriage. Express mention is made of the dowry and the means of supporting the wife and the conditions of a dissolution of the marriage in regard to property and often in regard to children. The early Egyptians do not seem to have made wills, and they embodied the substance of what would have been their wills in their marriage contracts. Marriage was a matter of purely civil contract. Each party entered on the marriage without any constraint, and each party could cancel the contract and thereby the marriage. In the strict sense of the word there could be no divorce. No legal judgment was required for cancelling the marriage contracts. It is a remarkable circumstance that in all the documents cancelling the marriage contracts which have come down to us no mention is made of the reason which led to the annulling of the contract. Only once it is suggested that “some evil daimon” may be at the bottom of it.[262] The arrangements in cancelling marriage contracts are strongly in favour of the wife. Nietzold, after describing in detail the conditions laid down in such documents, says: “According to all these arrangements the wife takes a very favourable position. She has by the separation absolutely nothing to lose, even when she is the guilty party.” The reader may form a good idea of what was involved in a regular marriage from a marriage contract which, with Dr. Grenfell’s permission, I subjoin. It is a contract (92 B.C.) belonging to the period of the Ptolemies, when Greek influence was strong, but at the same time it well represents generally the contents of all Egyptian contracts. It appears in the ‘Tebtunis Papyri,’ Part 1., p. 452. “The 22nd year, Mecheir 11. Philiscus son of Apollonius, a Persian of the Epigone, acknowledges to Apollonia, also called Kellauthis, daughter of Heraclides, Persian, with her guardian, her brother Apollonius, that he has received from her in copper money 2 talents 4,000 drachmae, the amount of the dowry for Apollonia agreed upon with him.... The keeper of the contract is Dionysius.”