Search Results
7/11/2025, 7:01:00 AM
7/1/2025, 12:45:44 AM
>>101791324
Putting aside the parallel practice of bride price, bear in mind that:
a) dowries were frequently given to the man personally, not to the man's family, so that he would be able to support the new family
b) they were often used as a way to provide female children with some form of inheritance in societies which cognatic inheritance customs, and
c) women are hypergamous - i.e., they try to "marry upwards", which also explains why compensation would be needed to basically filter out the opportunistic grifting social climbers. In other words, this doesn't reflect that the man is more valuable ceteris paribus, but rather that a man of the gentry would be worth more than a peasant girl. The dowry, therefore, was a fee paid by the lower class family to the higher class family in exchange for the chance for the family as a whole to be elevated in social status through the marriage, rather than reflecting any particular value on the part of the groom individually.
Putting aside the parallel practice of bride price, bear in mind that:
a) dowries were frequently given to the man personally, not to the man's family, so that he would be able to support the new family
b) they were often used as a way to provide female children with some form of inheritance in societies which cognatic inheritance customs, and
c) women are hypergamous - i.e., they try to "marry upwards", which also explains why compensation would be needed to basically filter out the opportunistic grifting social climbers. In other words, this doesn't reflect that the man is more valuable ceteris paribus, but rather that a man of the gentry would be worth more than a peasant girl. The dowry, therefore, was a fee paid by the lower class family to the higher class family in exchange for the chance for the family as a whole to be elevated in social status through the marriage, rather than reflecting any particular value on the part of the groom individually.
Page 1