Note 899 — Chapter VI · OLD ENGLISH WIFE-PURCHASE YIELDS TO FREE MARRIAGE
Reading edition
Pollock and Maitland, II, 368. Cf. Dargun, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 23 ff.
Besides the normal or full marriage of free men and women, just described, the law-books recognize concubinage, so-called "marriages" between the unfree, and unions between the free and the unfree. The church, by giving them a sacramental sanction, constantly strove to raise these irregular connections to the rank of genuine wedlock. See especially Koehne, "Die Geschlechtsverbindungen der Unfreien," in Gierke's Untersuchungen, XXII, 1-23; and the literature on the subject mentioned in the Bibliographical Note at the head of this chapter.