no religious element in it.[1325] The prayer
formulas were uttered by the participants and their friends, and they
were formulas of invoking blessing, prosperity, and good fortune.

+417. Jewish marriage after the exile.+ The Jewish idea of marriage was
naive and primitive. The purpose was procreation. Every man was bound to
marry, after the exile, and could be compelled to do so, and to beget at
least one son and one daughter. By direct inference sterility made
marriage void. It had failed of its purpose. It was the naivete of this
notion of marriage which led to the provision of witnesses for the
consummation of the marriage. Marriage meant carnal union under
prescribed conditions, and nothing else. In Deut. xxii. 28 f. the rule
is laid down that a man who violated a maid must remain her husband.
This is another direct inference from the view of marriage. The
_ketubah_ was the document of a "gift on account of nuptials to be
celebrated." It made the bride a wife and not a concubine or maid
servant, for the distinction depended on the intention of the
bridegroom. In the rabbinical period the betrothal and wedding were
united. The wedding was made by a gift (a coin or ring), by a document
(_ketubah_), or by the fact of _concubitus_.[1326] The man took the
woman to wife by the formula: "Be thou consecrated to me," or later, "Be
thou consecrated to me by the law of Moses and Israel." These
formalities took place in the presence of at least ten witnesses, who
pronounced blessings and wishes for good fortune. The third mode of
wedding was forbidden in the third century A.D. In the Jewish notions of
marriage we see already the beginning of the later casuistry.
Procreation being the sense and purpose of marriage, the carnal act was
the matter of chief importance. At the same time the Jews thought that
copulation and childbirth rendered unclean. They must be rectified by
purification and penance. Thus the act had a double character; it was
both right and wrong. It was a conjugal duty not to be sensual.[1327]
All this contributed to the modern notion of pair marriage, for at last
no sex indulgence was allowed outside of legal marriage. When the custom
of the presence of witnesses in the bride chamber produced
dissatisfaction a tent was substituted for the chamber. Later a scarf,
ceremoniously spread over the heads of the pair, took the place of the
tent. The custom arose that the pair retired to a special room and took
a meal