Note 909 — Chapter VI · OLD ENGLISH WIFE-PURCHASE YIELDS TO FREE MARRIAGE

The ring is mentioned as arrha in Dig., xiv, tit. iii, 5, § 15; xix, tit. i, 11, § 6: Corpus juris civ., I, 189, 244. Arra appears in connection with sponsalia, Dig., xxiii, tit. ii, 38: Corpus juris civ., I, 297. Cf. Smith, Dict. Greek and Roman Ant., I, 193; Ludlow, in Dict. Christ. Ant., I, 142 ff.; Babington, ibid., II, 1807-9; Meyrick, ibid., 1105. Originally, we are told, the Roman lover presented his betrothed a plain ring of iron, in later days of gold, but did not receive one in exchange: Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, I, 456; Kulischer, in ZFE., X, 210. On the annulus pronubus and its acceptance by the Germans see Junius, De annulo romanorum; Müller, De annulo pronubo; Hofmann, Verlobungs- und Trauring, 829 ff.; Siegel, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 451; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 343; Bingham, Orig. Ecc., VII, 311, 313-16, 337, 339; Howlett, in Andrews's Curious Church Customs, 105, 107-9; Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 26 n. 3; Sohm, Eheschliessung, 54, 55.

In the marriage ceremony of the Greek church two rings are used, one of silver and one of gold; see ritual for espousals in the eastern church in Burn, Parish Registers, 141, 142; and in Bingham, The Christian Marriage Ceremony, 214 ff., 219; and cf. Zhishman, Das Eherecht der orientalischen Kirche, 691; and Meyrick, in Dict. Christ. Ant., II, 1105. The betrothal ring appears among the Slavs: Post, Familienrecht, 236. In mediæval England "a rush ring was supposed to possess some peculiar charm. Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Constitutions, anni 1217, forbids the putting of rush rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily," and he insists that some people thought that "what was thus done in jest was a real marriage": Burn, op. cit., 143. Cf. Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare, I, 315-19; Wood, The Wedding Day, 232, 233, 241. On the various uses and symbolism of the ring among the Teutonic peoples read the lecture of Hodgetts, Older England, 125-57; and a valuable general treatise on the ring is Jones's Finger Ring Lore (London, 1890). Tegg, The Knot Tied, 309-37, has two chapters on the marriage ring; throughout Wood's The Wedding Day in all Ages and Countries much information on the subject will be found; and there is an interesting passage in Swinburne, Of Spousals, 207-9, quoted below, with other references, chap. vii, sec. 1.

The kiss at betrothal appears to have been borrowed by the Christians from older pagan custom, and it was first given legal importance by Constantine. If the kiss were given, he provided that, in case one of the parties died before the nuptials, the other party was entitled to inherit half the espousal donations: Cod. Theod., lib. iii, tit. 5, leg. 5; Cod. Just., lib. v, tit. 3, leg. 16: Corpus juris civ., II, 194. Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 11: Ante-Nicene Faths., IV, 34, mentions the betrothal kiss as a heathen custom. Cf. Venables, in Dict. Christ. Ant., II, 905, 906; Bingham, Orig. Ecc., VII, 316; V, 75; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 343, 344. In England the priest joined in the ceremony of kissing at the nuptials. "In the Articles of Visitation in the diocese of London in 1554 is the following, 'Item, whether there be any that refuseth to kysse the Prieste at the solempnization of matrimony, or use any such lyke ceremonies heretofore used & observed in the Churche'": Burn, op. cit., 143; cf. Douce, Illustrations of Shakespeare, I, 112, 403; Wood, The Wedding Day, Index.