It was like that for the whole twenty years I was with you. For fourteen years I worked to win your two daughters---and six years for your flocks. And even then, you changed my wages ten times.

Tell me what presents you want, and set the payment for the bride as high as you wish; I will give you whatever you ask, if you will only let me marry her."

"If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, he must pay the bride price for her and marry her.

But if her father refuses to let him marry her, he must pay the father a sum of money equal to the bride price for a virgin.

And David also sent messengers to Ishbosheth to say, "Give me back my wife Michal. I paid a hundred Philistine foreskins in order to marry her."

So I paid fifteen pieces of silver and seven bushels of barley to buy her.

Our ancestor Jacob had to flee to Mesopotamia, where, in order to get a wife, he worked for another man and took care of his sheep.