Definition:
Bride-price also known as bride-wealth or progeny-price is a gift of money or goods from the groom or his kin to the bride’s kin.
Explanation:
When bride-price is paid, women and property move in opposite directions. (Goody and Tambaiah 1973; Bride-wealth and Dowry)
Forms:
Bride-price assumes different forms in different societies.
- In Africa. The Swazi, Nuer, Nykyusa. Ibo and Gusii pay it in the form of cattle . The Kipsigis pay it in terms of cattle and goats, and the Tiv pay it in the form of cows, clothes and brass rods.
- In America, the Cheyenne Red Indians pay in the form of horses; the Navajo Red Indians pay it in terms of horses and sheep and the Kwakiutl Red Indians pay it in the form of blankets and the Hopi Red Indians pay it in the form of food (Ibid).
- In Asia, the ChuckChee of Siberia provides reindeer, the Ifugao of Philippines provides pigs and the Toda of India provides loin-cloths.
- In Oceania, the Siwai of Melanesia provide bark clothes, mats and utensils and the Manus of Melanesia provide food, pots, shell money and dog ‘ s teeth.
Reasons:
According to the researchers conducted by Linton (1936), Lowie (1920,1939) , Murdock (1967) , Goody and Tambaiah (1973), Schlegel and Eloul (1988), the reasons underlying the bride-price is as follows:
- Bride-wealth establishes marriage as a socially legitimate sexual union. It serves as public recognition of the transfer of rights of the bride ‘ s people over the bride to the groom ‘ s people, such a transfer guarantees stable union providing sexual access, legitimate offspring and sharing of the fruits of each other ‘ s labour. Bride-wealth may be paid in installments or lump-sum at a time. if the groom’s people are allowed to pay it in installments, the groom cannot have claim over the children till the last payment is paid.
- Bride-wealth provides status to the girl. The social prestige of a married woman is directly influenced by the amount of bride price paid on her account, women view bride-price as a symbol of value and dignity in a male dominated society.
- Bride-wealth is a compensation for the loss of the girl to her family. If the girl is given away in marriage, the girl’s family loses a worker. The best way to compensate the loss is through the custom of receiving adequate bride-wealth in the form of money, cattle or other material items from the groom’s family.
- Bride-wealth is also compensation to that group for its loss and legal claims to the children that she will bear. A woman as a progenitor has value as members of the kinship group. It is therefore, a common expectancy among the African societies that the bride’s family must substitute younger sister without change if no issue is forthcoming from the first daughter. Among the Thonga, the family is required to surrender their son’s wife to the son-in-law in lieu of their barren daughter, The same requirements hold if the married daughter deserts her husband .
- Bride-wealth is progeny-price also, It actually establishes a legally effective final right to children. Among the vizo Sakaiawa of Madagascar, a divorced wife can remarry only with her former husband’s consent. This will be forthcoming upon agreement by the wife and her husband to be that the first three children born to them will be relinquished to the first husband, who as the one who paid the bride-wealth to her family. Among the Bavenda of South Africa,a married woman arranges for a second wife for her husband as a means of providing him with children. These children call their first wife “father” because she after all is the one who paid for them .
- Even though bride-wealth is more common in patrilineal societies, it may also occur with matrilineal societies. But in matrilineal societies, any child a married couple produce belongs to the wife’ s descent group rather than the husband’s since the marriage benefits the usually smaller .
- Bride-wealth is also a guarantee on the part of the groom and his kin groups that the wife will be well -treated in her new home. If she is not well treated, she may return to the home of her parents and the husband will lose his investment in her (Murdock 1934). At the same time bride-wealth serves as a security to the bride. That means if the marriage fails through no fault of hers and the wife not be returned by the groom (Ember and Ember 1993:192).
- Bride-wealth stabilizes marriage and domestic life. If the marriage shows a sign of failure through the fault of the girl , the girls kin may pressure her to remain with her husband even though she does not wish to, because they do not want to return the bride-wealth or they are unable to do so .
- Bride-wealth involves several groups of families with mutual economic obligations and expectancies in arranging the alliances. The groom’ s people pay bride price in terms of 40 cattle to the bride ‘ s family. of these, 20 go to the members of the bride’ s primary joint family, 10 go to her father’s primary joint family and the remaining 10 to her mother ‘ s primary joint family . All this reveals the mechanism of redistribution of bride-wealth and the principle of reciprocity in the arrangement of marriage . Bride’s wealth unites several kin groups from the side of the boy and the side of the girl; it provides the bride’s family with a means of replacing her by daughters-in-law whose labour power and children will add to the resources of the family . In other words, the bride-wealth becomes a sort of circulating capital investment. It is used to make the bride-wealth payment when a brother of today’s bride takes his own wife tomorrow.
All this makes it clear how much more than just a commercial transaction the transfer of bride-wealth is a complex process. It includes numerous details of collection and distribution. The obsession with this kind of thing is called as “the right foreleg of the ox school of anthropology”.