(12) Dowry and gift.--The word rendered dowry (mohar) is the price paid to the parents and relatives of the bride, though taking the form of a present. The gift (matthan) was the present made by the bridegroom to the bride herself. Besides this, her relatives were expected to give her presents, and with some tribes of Arabs it is usual even to make over to her the dowry.

34:1-19 Young persons, especially females, are never so safe and well off as under the care of pious parents. Their own ignorance, and the flattery and artifices of designing, wicked people, who are ever laying snares for them, expose them to great danger. They are their own enemies if they desire to go abroad, especially alone, among strangers to true religion. Those parents are very wrong who do not hinder their children from needlessly exposing themselves to danger. Indulged children, like Dinah, often become a grief and shame to their families. Her pretence was, to see the daughters of the land, to see how they dressed, and how they danced, and what was fashionable among them; she went to see, yet that was not all, she went to be seen too. She went to get acquaintance with the Canaanites, and to learn their ways. See what came of Dinah's gadding. The beginning of sin is as the letting forth of water. How great a matter does a little fire kindle! We should carefully avoid all occasions of sin and approaches to it.Ask me never so much dowry and gift,.... Or "multiply them exceedingly" (i), fix them at as high a rate as may be thought fit; the "dowry" was what a man gave to a woman at her marriage; for in those times and countries, instead of a man having a portion with his wife, as with us in our times, he gave one to his wife, or to her parents for her; and especially in after times this was used, and became a law in Israel, in the case of a vitiated virgin, see Exodus 22:16; and "the gift" was either of jewels and clothes to the women, or of such like precious things to her brethren and friends, see Genesis 24:53,

and I will give according as ye shall say unto me; determine among yourselves whatever shall be the dowry and gift, and it shall be punctually observed:

but give me the damsel to wife; only agree to that, and I care not what is required of me.

(i) "multiplicate super me admodum", Drusius, Schmidt.