rate. When the bride and bridegroom both belonged to the same
class, or were possessed of equal fortunes, the relatives of the woman
could exact an oath from the man that he would abstain from taking
a second wife during her lifetime; a special article of the marriage
agreement permitted the woman to go free should the husband break his
faith, and bound him to pay an indemnity as a compensation for the
insult he had offered her. This engagement on the part of the man,
however, did not affect his relations with his female servants. In
Chaldaea, as in Egypt, and indeed in the whole of the ancient world,
they were always completely at the mercy of their purchaser, and the
permission to treat them as he would had become so much of a custom
that the begetting of children by their master was desired rather than
otherwise: the complaints of the despised slave, who had not been taken
into her master's favour, formed one of the themes of popular poetry at
a very early period. When the contract tablet was finally sealed, one
of the witnesses, who was required to be a free man, joined the hands
of the young couple; nothing then remained to be done but to invite the
blessing of the gods, and to end the day by a feast, which would unite
both families and their guests. The evil spirits, however, always in
quest of an easy prey, were liable to find their way into the nuptial
chamber, favoured by the confusion inseparable from all household
rejoicing: prudence demanded that their attempts should be frustrated,
and that the newly married couple should be protected from their
attacks. The companions of the bridegroom took possession of him, and,
hand to hand and foot to foot, formed as it were a rampart round him
with their bodies, and carried him off solemnly to his expectant bride.
He then again repeated the words which he had said in the morning: "I
am the son of a prince, gold and silver shall fill thy bosom; thou, even
thou, shalt be my wife, I myself will be thy husband;" and he continued:
"As the fruits borne by an orchard, so great shall be the abundance
which I shall pour out upon this woman."* The priest then called down
upon him benedictions from on high: "Therefore, O ye (gods), all that is
bad and that is not good in this man, drive it far from him and give him
strength. As for thee, O man, exhibit thy manhood, that this woman may
be thy wife; thou, O woman, give that which makes thy womanhood, that
this man may be thy husband