among the Germans meant a simple purchase of a wife. It is
said that "ein Weib zu kaufen" (to buy a wife) was the common term for
getting engaged, and that this phrase was so used as late as the
eleventh century. The wardship was called the _mundium_, and when the
maid left her father's house for another home, her _mundium_ was
transferred from her father to her husband. This dower began, indeed,
with the engagement, and the price of the _mundium_ was paid over to
the guardian at the time of the contract. From this time suit for
breach of promise could be brought. These are the primitive customs of
the marriage ceremony, but they were changed from time to time.
Through the influence of Christianity, the woman finally attained
prominence in the matter of choosing a husband, and learned, much to
her satisfaction, to make her own contracts in matrimony.

_The Economic Life_.--The economic life was of the most meagre kind in
the earlier stages of society. We find that Tacitus, writing 150 years
after Caesar, shows that there had been some changes in the people. In
the time of Caesar, the tribes were just making their transition from
the pastoral-nomadic to the pastoral-agricultural state, and by the
time of Tacitus this transition was so general that most of the tribes
had settled to a more or less permanent agricultural life. It must be
observed that the development of the tribes was not symmetrical, and
that which reads very pleasantly on paper represents a very confused
state of society. However much the tribes practised agriculture, they
had but little peace, for warfare continued to be one of their chief
occupations. It was in the battle that a youth received his chief
education, and in the chase that he occupied much of his spare time.

But the ground was tilled, and barley, wheat, oats, and rye were
raised. Flax was cultivated, and the good housewife did the spinning
and weaving--all that was done--for the household. Greens, or herbage,
were also cultivated, but {291} fruit-trees seldom were cultivated.
With the products of the soil, of the chase, and of the herds, the
Teutons lived well. They had bread and meat, milk, butter and cheese,
beer and mead, as well as fish and wild game. The superintending of
the fields frequently fell to the lot of the hausfrau, and the labor
was done by serfs. The tending of the fields, the pursuit of wild
animals or the catching of fish, the care of the cattle or herds,