The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c21.27

v1.c21.27

Thus in the ceremony it is universal usage to walk the seven steps together and for the bridegroom to murmur, as he takes the bride's hand: 'This am I, that art thou, that art thou, this am I; Heaven am I and Earth art thou; the (feminine) Ṛich (Rigveda verse) art thou, the Sāman am I. Be thou devoted to me,' and to make the bride mount a stone as an emblem of firmness. But special rules are that women shall come to the bride's house and eat and drink brandy and dance four times; and that merry girls shall escort the bridegroom to the bride's house, and that he must do all the foolish (?) things they tell him to do (except when taboo is concerned). (Çāṅkh., *G.S.*, I, 12, 2.) Some measure of values may perhaps be obtained from the statement that the fee to the priest who performs the marriage-ceremony is a cow, given by the bridegroom, if the groom is of the same caste as the priest, but a village if the groom is 'royal,' Rājanya, that is a nobleman of 'kingly' order, and a horse if the groom is of the third estate (farmer, trader). Obviously the succeeding rule, which is not unique, countenances a sort of sale in that it adds: '(The bridegroom must give) to the one who has the daughter one hundred (cows) together with a chariot.' The same rule is found in the Dharma Sūtras (Āpastamba, II, 13, 12) with the explanation that the gift must be returned, as a sale is not allowed—which only points back to an earlier period when the sale of daughters was allowed.