"This is the equipment of their persons. I will now speak of their established customs. The wisest of these, in our judgment, is one which I have learned by inquiry is also a custom of the Eneti in Illyria. It is this: once a year in every village all the maidens as they attained marriageable age were collected and brought together into one place, with a crowd of men standing around. [2] Then a crier would display and offer them for sale one by one, first the fairest of all; and then, when she had fetched a great price, he put up for sale the next most attractive, selling all the maidens as lawful wives. Rich men of Assyria who desired to marry would outbid each other for the fairest; the ordinary people, who desired to marry and had no use for beauty, could take the ugly ones and money besides; [3] for when the crier had sold all the most attractive, he would put up the one that was least beautiful, or crippled, and offer her to whoever would take her to wife for the least amount, until she fell to one who promised to accept least; the money came from the sale of the attractive ones, who thus paid the dowry of the ugly and the crippled. But a man could not give his daughter in marriage to whomever he liked, nor could one that bought a girl take her away without giving security that he would in fact make her his wife. [4] And if the couple could not agree, it was a law that the money be returned. Men might also come from other villages to buy if they so desired. [5] This, then, was their best custom; but it does not continue at this time; they have invented a new one lately [so that the women not be wronged or taken to another city]; since the conquest of Babylon made them afflicted and poor, everyone of the people that lacks a livelihood prostitutes his daughters." Herodotus (484 BC-ca. 425 BC)., with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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MARKETING AND STORYTELLING COSMOLOGY THE BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET WE ALL LIVE OUR LIVES THROUGH STORIES. EVERYTHING IS THE APPLICATION OF A NONLINEAR OR LINEAR ALPHA AND OMEGA ASSEMBLED STORY. Marketing and Storytelling Cosmology The world began and will end with a story. Each alpha and omega story holds people together with the promise of special positions, rewards, and protection. Without a story and our symbolic place in it we will never make the required sacrifice to assure the future of fellow story holders. Each alpha and omega story promises its followers an allotment of related symbols. Special or superior symbols are given to those that are deemed to have succeeded within their story. The most desirable women are prepared and are attracted to current and future male story leaders to assure the best children assume leadership. Look around and try to find women that have married into a lower social status in any society. In some societies such as Singapore and Russia this has become a real problem. There has always been a form of marketing or the distribution of symbols to assure that a story is followed. Those men who hold the symbols of success and power within a story are matched with the best women. Each story promises that their followers are entitled to take the symbols, labor, women, and resources of all outside story holders. Symbols and their interpretation of outsiders and their competing stories are not tolerated and always crushed. Our fear of the other's stories and their symbols are absolutely real. The slightest change in a current story and symbols puts all story holders at risk. Outside symbols are only allowed into a story after they have been internalized and sanitized. This is accomplished by a change in language and a recognition that the source of entry of the symbol has come from within our story. All products are only valued as symbols that are supporting our story. The young and disenfranchised are most likely to embrace another story's symbols. When a story's symbols begin to unravel the orthodox protectors return to protect it with a vengeance. If orthodoxy fails to hold their story a new story and symbols moves into power. The conquered men are excluded, killed, jailed, or must escape. Their women and children are devalued but over time they are brought into the new story with lower status. These women and children fall prey to material consumption as a means of gaining unattainable social status. Their disenfranchised offspring then comes to challenge the dominant narrative with a new interpretation of their conquered story. The story wars are not friendly.
The Babylonian Marriage Market, Artist Edwin Long 1875 Herodotus Block Quote Linked to Edwin Long's Painting BBC - Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Babylonian Marriage Market The Babylonian Marriage Market - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I first saw and purchased the print of Edwin Long's painting "The Babylonian Marriage Market" at the University of Cairo when consulting in Cairo, Egypt. I had the print framed and found it an extremely compelling image for many years with no thought of why? I did not even know when it was painted and who the artist was. When my daughter asked me if she could have the print. I was shocked because she had rarely acted as if anything I had or gave her had any value. As a marketing professor I am interested in what makes one product immediately desirable while most others are ignored.
"Romance of Three Kingdoms from China is one
of the best strategic stories in the history of the world."
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