One Elephantine marriage contract specifies the names of the wife-to-be, her father and the groom, the bride price (five shekels) and the groom's gifts to the bride (in this case, material goods worth more than 65 shekels). In addition the contract specifies the inheritance rights of both partners in the event of death without children (all goes to the surviving spouse) as well as the legal consequences of divorce. In this case if she divorces him (literally, "If she says, 'I hate my husband"') he gets his bride price back plus fifty percent interest and keeps his presents, but if he divorces her (literally, "If he says, 'I hate my wife"') he forfeits the five-shekel bride price. According to the contract, however, he gets his presents back and she takes her personal belongings with her. The man also agrees to pay the first wife two hundred shekels as a penalty as well as continued support should he take a second wife.
Elements of the marriage contract are mentioned in passing in the OT: the "bride price" and the "dowry."36 The ordinary custom was that the man acquiring a wife would pay a mohar ("bride price," or-if this sounds too much like the woman is being bought-"marriage gift") that would go to the father