Dowry
A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage.
Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment by the groom, or his family, to the bride, or her family, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride, or her family, to the groom, or his family. Similarly, dower is the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control.
Traditional dowry is an ancient custom that is mentioned in some of the earliest writings, and its existence may well predate records of it. Dowries continue to be expected and demanded as a condition to accept a marriage proposal in some parts of the world, mainly in parts of Asia. The custom of dowry is most common in strongly patrilineal cultures that expect women to reside with or near their husband's family. Dowries have long histories in Europe, South Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world.
Definition
A dowry is the transfer of parental property to a daughter at her marriage rather than at the owner's death. A dowry establishes a type of conjugal fund, the nature of which may vary widely. This fund may provide an element of financial security in widowhood or against a negligent husband, and may eventually go to provide for her children. Dowries may also go toward establishing a marital household, and therefore might include furnishings such as linens and furniture.Locally, dowry or trousseau is called in Urdu, jahizie in Persian and Arabic; dahej in Hindi, in Punjabi, daijo in Nepali, çeyiz in Turkish, joutuk in Bengali, jiazhuang in Mandarin, varadhachanai in Tamil, khatnam in Telugu, streedhanam in Malayalam, miraz in Serbo-Croatian and in various parts of Africa is known as serotwana, idana, saduquat or mugtaf.
Origins
Anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study of dowry systems around the world using the Ethnographic Atlas demonstrated that dowry is a form of inheritance found in the broad swath of Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland that practice "diverging devolution", i.e., that transmit property to children regardless of sex. This practice differs from the majority of Sub-Saharan African societies that practice "homogenous inheritance" in which property is transmitted only to children of the same sex as the property holder. These latter African societies are characterized by the transmission of the "bride price", the money, goods or property given by the groom or his family to the parents of the bride.Goody has demonstrated a historical correlation between the practices of "diverging devolution" and the development of intensive plough agriculture on the one hand, and homogeneous inheritance and extensive hoe agriculture on the other. Drawing on the work of Ester Boserup, Goody notes that the sexual division of labour varies in intensive plough agriculture and extensive shifting horticulture. In sparsely populated regions where shifting cultivation takes place, most of the work is done by women. These are the societies that give brideprice. Boserup further associates shifting horticulture with the practice of polygamy, and hence bridewealth is paid as a compensation to her family for the loss of her labour. In plough agriculture farming is largely men's work; this is where dowry is given. In contrast, plough agriculture is associated with private property and marriage tends to be monogamous, to keep the property within the nuclear family. Close family are the preferred marriage partners so as to keep property within the group.
There is a scholarly debate on Goody's theory. Sylvia Yanagisako argues, for example, that there are a number of societies including parts of Japan, Southern Italy, and China, that do not support Goody's claim that dowry is a form of female inheritance of male property. She notes that Goody's is an evolutionary model in which these historical variables may not be the decisive factors today. Susan Mann argues, in contrast, with examples where even in late Imperial China, dowry was a form of female inheritance.
Stanley J. Tambiah later argued that Goody's overall thesis remained pertinent in North India, although it required modification to meet local circumstances. He points out that dowry in North India is only partially used as a bride's conjugal fund, and that a large part goes directly to the groom's joint family. This would initially seem to discount Goody's model, except that in North India, the joint family is composed of the groom's parents, his married brothers and unmarried sisters, and their third generation children. This joint family controlled this part of the dowry, which they used to help fund their own daughter/sister's dowries. But when the parents die, and the joint family partitions, this jointly held wealth was then divided among the married sons, such that ultimately, the bride's dowry given to the joint family returned to her and her husband as their "conjugal fund."
Schlegel and Eloul expanded on Goody's model through further statistical analysis of the Ethnographic atlas. They argue that a major factor in determining the type of marriage transaction is the type of property controlled by the household. Bridewealth circulates property and women, and is typical of societies where property is limited. Dowry concentrates property and is found in property owning classes or commercial or landed pastoral peoples. When families give dowry, they not only ensure their daughter's economic security, they also "buy" the best possible husband for her, and son-in-law for themselves.
Historical practices
Babylon
Even in the oldest available records, such as the Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon, the dowry is described as an already-existing custom. Daughters did not normally inherit any of her father's estate. Instead, with marriage, the bride got a dowry from her parents, which was intended to offer her as much lifetime security as her family could afford.In Babylonia, both bride price and dowry auctions were practiced. However, bride price almost always became part of the dowry. According to Herodotus, auctions of maidens were held annually. The auctions began with the woman the auctioneer considered to be the most beautiful and progressed to the least. It was considered illegal to allow a daughter to be sold outside of the auction method. Attractive maidens were offered in an auction to determine the bride price to be paid by a swain, while in the case of maidens lacking attractivity a reverse auction was needed to determine the dowry to be paid to a swain. In case of divorce without reason, a man was required to give his wife the dowry she brought as well as the bride price the husband gave. The return of dowry could be disputed, if the divorce was for a reason allowed under Babylonian law.
A wife's dowry was administered by her husband as part of the family assets. He had no say, however, in its ultimate disposal; and legally, the dowry had to be kept separate for it was expected to support the wife and her children. The wife was entitled to her dowry at her husband's death. If she died childless, her dowry reverted to her family, that is her father if he was alive, otherwise her brothers. If she had sons, they would share it equally. Her dowry was inheritable only by her own children, not by her husband's children or by other women.
Ancient Greece
In archaic Greece, the usual practice was to give a bride price. Dowries were exchanged by the later classical period. A husband had certain property rights in his wife's dowry. In addition, the wife might bring to the marriage property of her own, which was not included in the dowry and which was, as a result, hers alone. This property was "beyond the dowry" and is referred to as paraphernal property or extra-dotal property.A dowry may also have served as a form of protection for the wife against the possibility of ill treatment by her husband and his family, providing an incentive for the husband not to harm his wife. This would apply in cultures where a dowry was expected to be returned to the bride's family if she died soon after marrying.
In contemporary Greece, dowry was removed from family law through legal reforms in 1983.
Roman Empire
The Romans practiced dowry. The dowry was property transferred by the bride, or on her behalf by anyone else, to the groom or groom's father, at their marriage. Dowry was a very common institution in Roman times, and it began out of a desire to get the bride's family to contribute a share of the costs involved in setting up a new household. Dowry was given for the purpose of enabling the husband to sustain the charges of the marriage state. All the property of the wife which was not dowry, or was not a donatio propter nuptias, continued to be her own property, and was called parapherna. The dowry could include any form of property, given or promised at the time of marriage, but only what remained after deducting the debts. Not only the bride's family, any person could donate his property as dowry for the woman.Two types of dowry were known—dos profectitia and dos adventitia. That dowry is profectitia which was given by the father or father's father of the bride. All other dowry is adventitia. Roman law also allowed for a species of dowry, called dos receptitia, which was given by some other person than the father or father of the bride's father, in consideration of marriage, but on the condition that it should be restored back to the dowry giver, on the death of the wife. The bride's family were expected to give a dowry when a girl married, and in proportion to their means. It was customary for the bride's family and friends to pay promised dowries in installments over three years, and some Romans won great praise by delivering the dowry in one lump sum.