Dowry
A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, 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.[1]
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.[2][3][4] The custom of dowry is most common in strongly patrilineal cultures that expect women to reside with or near their husband's family (patrilocality).[5] Dowries have long histories in Europe, South Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world.[5]
Definition[edit]
A dowry is the transfer of parental property to a daughter at her marriage (i.e. "inter vivos") rather than at the owner's death (mortis causa).[6] 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.[6] 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 jahez in Urdu, jahizie in Persian and Arabic; dahej in Hindi, dāj in Punjabi, daijo in Nepali,[7] 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,[8] idana, saduquat or mugtaf.[9][10][11]
Historical practices[edit]
Babylon[edit]
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.[21][22]
In Babylonia, both bride price and dowry auctions were practiced. However, bride price almost always became part of the dowry.[21] 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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25][26]
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.[21]
Ancient Greece[edit]
In archaic Greece, the usual practice was to give a bride price (hédnon (ἕδνον)). Dowries (pherné (φερνή)) were exchanged by the later classical period (5th century B.C). 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" (Greek parapherna, the root of paraphernalia) 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,[27] 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.[28][29]
Roman Empire[edit]
The Romans practiced dowry (dos).[30][31] 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,[32] 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.[33] Dos was given for the purpose of enabling the husband to sustain the charges of the marriage state (onera matrimonii). 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.[30] 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.[31] That dos is profectitia which was given by the father or father's father of the bride. All other dos 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.[34] 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.[35]
