It was typically a fixed fee, a divani tax; it was paid around the time of marriage, to the timar-holder, or even to a tax-farmer in their stead.
[3] Resm-i arusane is first recorded in the fifteenth century AD.
[4] Although it was arguably incompatible with the shari'ah law, the resm-i arusane continued to be a small, but significant, source of tax revenue in the Ottoman Empire.
[5] One 16th-century fatwa specifically stated that the resm-i arusane and the resm-i hinzir (pig tax) were illegal, but these taxes on "forbidden" transactions continued - sometimes under the guise of "gifts".
A Christian couple who wished to marry in a church would also have to pay nikâh resmi to the metropolitan, and a further fee to the local parish priest; this could be considerably more expensive than the resm-i arusane itself.