The dowry, on the other hand, is the wealth a woman brings to her husband as a part of the marriage. The dowry has usually been provided by the woman’s family at the time of the marriage; the idea behind the dowry is to aid the beginning of the new household, aiding the new husband in the provision for his wife.
Interestingly, the dowry has usually been greater than the bride price in those cultures practicing both traditions, suggesting that the concept of “buying” a wife misunderstands the reasoning behind such transactional marriages. Consider the following scenario: a young man must pay a bride price of $10,000 to the bride’s parents before he marries his choice of a bride. When he marries her, she brings a dowry of $25,000 from her parents as “seed money” for the new marriage.
In addition to helping the young marriage start off well, the dowry also aimed to provide for a young woman in the event of her husband’s untimely death or a divorce (generally the dowry would need to be returned by the husband, making it financially difficult to divorce—modern “alimony” payments derive from this concept and the related concept of the “dower,” which was sort of like an ancient pre-nuptial agreement). Also, since in many past societies, women did not receive an inheritance from their parents, the dowry served as a substitute for the woman’s inheritance. Upon the death of a woman, the value of her dowry was to be divided only among her children—it was not to go to any of her husband’s other children, if he had any.
So, let no one make this mistake again: the dowry and the bride price are entirely different things, though each has an eye toward improving the success of the fledgling marriage. The bride price was paid by the groom to the bride’s parents, while the dowry was brought into the marriage by the woman, usually through the provision of her parents.
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