The Importance of Money in Marriage

Bridewealth money is presented not to settle a debt, but as a kind of acknowledgment that there exists a debt that cannot be settled by means of money. Money then begins, as rosbabe himself puts it, as a substitute for life. Only a human could ever be considered equivalent to another human. We are speaking of a human life that also has the capacity to generate new lives. This in turn explains why it's invariably the exact same kind of money used to arrange marriages that is also used to pay wergeld - blood wealth.