In old English and in Scots law, a fine paid to the lord of the soil by a tenant upon the marriage of one the tenant's daughters.

Payment due to a manorial lord upon marriage. (Bennett, Judith M. Women in the Medieval English Countryside, 234) A payment by unfree tenants for the right to marry off daughters or other female relatives. (Waugh, Scott. England in the Reign of Edward III, 238) A fine paid by a servile tenant to his lord for liberty to give his daughter in marriage. (Bennett, H.S. Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 1150-1400, 338) Related terms: Formariage / Marriage

payment made for obtaining permission for a daughter to marry

A fee paid by a villein for a daughter's mariage.

fine paid to a lord allowing a woman to marry a man from outside the manor of her birth. (p. 396)

A merchet was a fine paid on a marriage during the Middle Ages in England. The word derives from the plural form of daughter, merched, in old Welsh. A peasant would pay a merchet to his lord upon the marriage of a woman.