Elsewhere he says, ‘ Even a Sudra ought not to take a nuptial fee, when he gives away his daughter; for he who takes a fee sells his daughter, covering the transaction by another name’. 45 He further declares emphatically that such a thing, is unheard of. 46 But, against the above argument, a verse occurs in support of the fee.

This is, in all probability, an interpolation of later writers; for it cannot consistently come from the pen of the same writer after such an emphatic declaration against even the fee of a cow at the Arsha wedding where he says ‘Even the acceptance of a bovrice pair is designated as a dowry by certain authorities—a dowry whether costly or insignificant in value constitutes the sale of a daughter’. 47

But ‘when the relatives do not appropriate for their use the gratuity given, it is not a sale; in that case the gift is only a token of respect and of kindness towards the maiden’. 48 This is evidently the plea of a certain section of the people who wanted to re-institute in society the custom of taking dowry.