Dowry facts for kids
A dowry is a payment, such as land property, monetary, cattle or any 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.
Traditionalist 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 (patrilocality). Dowries have long histories in Europe, South Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world.
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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 (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, 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 (dos). 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. 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. 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 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. 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.
China
Dowry was common in different historic periods of China and continued through the modern history. Locally called "嫁妝 (pinyin: Jiàzhuāng), the dowry ranged from land, jewelry, money to a collection of clothing, sewing equipment and collection of household items. Mann and others find that dowry was a form of inheritance to daughters. In traditional China, the property owned by a family, if any, was earmarked for equal division or inheritance by sons only. Dowry was the only way assets were transferred to a daughter. It included immovable property such as land, and movable property like jewelry and fine clothing. The dowry she brought with her was typically sequestered from the property of her husband and other male members in a joint family. She would often sell this property for cash to overcome hard economic times or needs of her children and husband. In a few cases, she may transfer the property she brought as dowry to her daughter or daughter-in-law. Dowry assets once transferred in turn constituted separate wealth of the woman who received it (sifang qian, etc.). Often a woman who brought a large dowry was considered more virtuous in Chinese culture than one who didn't. In parts of China, both dowry and brideprice (pinjin) were practiced from ancient eras to the 20th century. Though throughout the history of China, the practice of using a brideprice has largely been used instead of dowries, but has slowly diminished in modern times.
Europe
Dowry was widely practiced in Europe until the early modern era. Folklorists often interpret the folk tale Cinderella as the competition between the stepmother and the stepdaughter for resources, which may include the need to provide a dowry. Gioachino Rossini's opera La Cenerentola makes this economic basis explicit: Don Magnifico wishes to make his own daughters' dowries larger, to attract a grander match, which is impossible if he must provide a third dowry.
One common penalty for the kidnapping of an unmarried woman was that the abductor had to provide the woman's dowry. Until the late 20th century this was sometimes called wreath money, or the breach of promise.
Providing dowries for poor women was regarded as a form of charity by wealthier parishioners. The custom of Christmas stockings springs from a legend of St Nicholas, in which he threw gold in the stockings of three poor sisters, thus providing for their dowries. St. Elizabeth of Portugal and St. Martin de Porres were particularly noted for providing such dowries, and the Archconfraternity of the Annunciation, a Roman charity dedicated to providing dowries, received the entire estate of Pope Urban VII. In 1425, the Republic of Florence created a public fund, called the Monte delle doti, to provide dowries to Florentine brides.
Vast inheritances were standard as dowries for aristocratic and royal brides in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Portuguese crown gave two cities in India and Morocco as dowry to the British Crown in 1661 when King Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza, a princess of Portugal.
In some cases, nuns were required to bring a dowry when joining a convent. At some times, such as Ancien Régime France, convents were also used by some parents to put less attractive daughters, so that the more marriageable daughters could have larger dowries. Ancien Régime families that could not provide proper dowries also used the convents as places to put their daughters.
In the County of Bentheim in Lower Saxony, for instance, parents who had no sons might give a land dowry to their new son-in-law. It was commonly given with the condition that he take the surname of his bride, in order to continue the family name.
England
Dowry was used in England. However, the right of daughters to inherit and of women to hold property and other rights in their own name made it a different instrument than on the Continent. The Salic law, which required females to be disinherited and disenfranchised from land ownership, did not apply in England. Single women held many rights men did. The most famous example of this English female inheritance and agency right is perhaps Elizabeth I of England, who held all rights a male monarch did.
While single women held rights to hold property equivalent to those of men, marriage and married women were affected by the Norman Conquest changes to the law in the 12th century. Coverture was introduced to the common law in some jurisdictions, requiring property of a wife to be held in the husband's name, custody and control. The Normans also introduced the dowry in England replacing the earlier custom of the new husband giving a morning gift to his bride. At first the husband publicly gave [or received?] the dowry at the church door at the wedding.
If the husband died first, which was frequent, there was a Widows dowry of one third of the husband's lands at the time of his marriage; the income, and in some cases, the management, of the lands, was assigned to her for the rest of her life. This concept is included in the Great Charter, and along with the recognition of female inheritance and absence of the Salic law, and women, particularly single women, holding many rights equivalent to those men held, manifests English law differing fundamentally from the law of the Continent, especially the law of the Holy Roman Empire.
Thirteenth-century court records are filled with disputes over dowries, and the law became increasingly complex.
The English dowry system permitted most noble families to marry off their daughters and thereby gain extended kin and patronage ties. Marriageable daughters were a valuable commodity to ambitious fathers, and the English aristocracy sent few of their eligible daughters to convents.
Failure to provide a customary, or agreed-upon, dowry could cause a marriage to be called off. William Shakespeare made use of such an event in King Lear: one of Cordelia's suitors gives up his suit upon hearing that King Lear will give her no dowry.
In Victorian England, dowries were viewed by some members of the upper class as an early payment of the daughter's inheritance. In some instances, daughters who had not received their dowries were the only female heirs entitled to part of the estate when their parents died. If a couple died without children, a woman's dowry was often returned to her family.
Coverture never applied universally in Britain and was repealed in the 1800s. This effectively ended the concept of dowry as the property of a single woman was either retained by her after marriage or its income became marital property under joint control with a husband (not under his sole control as in coverture).
Russia
In some parts of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, land dowries were common.
The Domostroy, a Russian advice book of the 16th century for upper classes, includes advice to set aside property for purposes of a dowry, and use it to accumulate linens, clothing, and other things for it, rather than have to suddenly buy it all for the wedding; if the daughter should happen to die, the dowry should be used to give alms and for prayers for her soul, although some might be set aside for other daughters. In late Tsarist Russia the dowry originally consisted of clothing for the bride, linen, and bedding. Linen became less common, a fact blamed on poor flax harvest and girls being poor spinners, but emphasis was added to the finest of the clothing, and a money dowry was sometimes added, particularly if the bride was regarded as having some fault. Prospective in-laws, usually concerned mostly with her working ability, grew more concerned about a money dowry.
The Americas
Indigenous cultures
According to one ethnographic study of indigenous cultures worldwide, around six percent of North American indigenous cultures practised reciprocal exchange, involving the giving of gifts between both the bride and groom's families. Among the tribes of the American Plains, a combination of dower and dowry was used. The groom would give a gift of horses to the bride's parents, while they in turn would give a gift to the groom. The exchange was somewhat reciprocal.
Mexico
Spanish colonists brought the dowry custom to Mexico. Spain's laws gave brides the right to control their dowry after marriage, contrary to the usual European practice of transferring the dowry to the control of the groom and his family. Women, in practice, often did maintain control over their dowry after marriage. The husband might be given funds from the dowry to invest for the mutual benefit of the couple and their children, but wives also often used funds from their dowries to operate their own businesses, as grocers, tavern keepers, and shop owners in urban areas. Dowries were a common custom in the early colonial years, but were passing out of use by the mid-18th century. By that time, less wealthy daughters were often marrying without any dowry.
New France
The French government made efforts to encourage marriage for the male soldiers and traders in New France by granting dowries to women willing to travel to the colony at Quebec. As the French crown provided dowries for many of the women persuaded to travel to New France for marriages and settlement there, they were known as filles du roi (daughters of the king).
Convents in Quebec, as in Europe, required a dowry from the parents of girls becoming nuns, much as the dowry was expected in the marriages of upper class brides. The Catholic Church and secular authorities intended for this requirement to regulate admission into religious communities. Girls without a dowry were often supported by benefactors, however, and occasionally convents lowered the sum required to enter the convent.
United States
The dowry was a custom brought to the United States by colonists from England and elsewhere in Europe. One legend tells how John Hull, the Master of the Mint in Boston and a wealthy man, determined the dowry for his daughter Hannah's marriage to Samuel Sewall. Hull is said to have set his 18-year-old daughter onto one side of the large scales in his warehouse. He piled shillings into the other side of the scale until he reached her weight in silver, and that was her dowry.
The daughters of wealthy 19th-century industrialists, who were able to inherit large amounts of money and property, were given "dowries" by their fathers to marry European aristocrats who held a title but had little wealth. The mutual exchange of title and wealth raised the status of both bride and groom. A very good example is the marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895.
Current practices
Dowry is a common practice in many parts of the world, especially in South Asia and several Middle East and North Africa countries. Dowry is most common in nations with inadequate male-biased inheritance laws and patrilineal societies, which expect women to live with or near their husband's family. An unusual exception to the dowry custom in South Asia is found in Bhutan. The dowry system does not exist in Bhutan; inheritance is matrilineal, and daughters do not take their father's name at birth, nor their husband's name upon marriage. Rural land may be registered in a woman's name. Women own businesses, and both polyandry and polygyny are socially accepted, with polygyny being more prevalent. Sometimes a prospective groom will work in the bride's family's household to earn the right to marry her.
India
In India, dowry is called Dahez in Hindi. In far eastern parts of India, dowry is called Aaunnpot. Dowry is a payment of cash or gifts from the bride's family to the bridegroom's family upon arranged marriage. It may include cash, jewelry, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils, car and other household items that help the newlyweds set up their home.
In India, the dowry puts great financial strain on the bride's family. Payment of dowry is now prohibited under the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 in Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Despite anti-dowry laws in India, it is still a common practice.
See also
In Spanish: Dote para niños
