Marriage Payments: Bridewealth, Bride Service, Dowry and Gift Exchange

Marriage finances, or marriage payments, are the transfers of goods and services that accompany marriage. They take five forms: bridewealth (bride price), bride service, exchange of women, gift exchange and dowry. Bridewealth, in which wealth passes from the groom's kin to the bride's, is by far the commonest. Dowry, in which wealth passes with the bride, is rare and is found mainly in stratified, monogamous societies of Europe and Asia.

This note explains each form of marriage payment with its frequency, examples, functions and theories, for the UPSC Anthropology Optional. It falls under Paper I, topic 2.3 (marriage payments: bride wealth and dowry) of the Anthropology Optional syllabus.

What marriage finances are

The economic aspects of marriage that involve material transactions before, at or after the wedding are known as marriage finances. A German peasant saying puts it sharply: it is not man that marries maid, but field marries field, vineyard marries vineyard, cattle marry cattle. In many societies marriage is an economic arrangement between families as much as a union of two people.

The payments vary in several ways:

• Timing: before the marriage, after it, or both.
• Manner: in a lump sum, or in instalments spread over years.
• What they buy: among the Venda of southern Africa, different payments secure different rights over the bride; elsewhere a single package covers all.
• Accompanying gifts: in almost all societies the two sides also exchange gifts after the marriage is concluded.

Forms of marriage payment at a glance

In Goody and Tambiah's phrase, with bridewealth women and property move in opposite directions; with dowry they move in the same direction.

How common is each form?

Both surveys agree on the order: bridewealth first, bride service second, and dowry rare.

A. Bridewealth (bride price, progeny price)

Bridewealth is a gift of money or goods from the groom or his kin to the kin of the bride. E. E. Evans-Pritchard proposed the term "bridewealth" in place of "bride price", because the transfer is not a purchase. "Progeny price" stresses that what is secured is the right to the children.

Forms it takes

Functions of bridewealth

• It legitimises the marriage. It is the public sign that rights over the bride have passed from her kin to the groom's. Where it is paid in instalments, the husband's claim to the children may be incomplete until the last payment is made.
• It gives the woman standing. In many societies a wife's prestige reflects the bridewealth given for her.
• It compensates her family for the loss of a worker.
• It secures the children. The payment transfers her fertility to the husband's group. In some African societies, if a wife is childless or leaves, her family must provide a substitute or return the cattle.
• It is a progeny price. Among the Venda a woman of means could pay bridewealth for a wife on her husband's behalf; the children addressed her as "father", since it was she who had paid for them.
• It protects the wife. If she is ill-treated she may return home, and the husband loses what he gave.
• It stabilises marriage. Her kin, unwilling or unable to return the bridewealth, press her to stay.
• It binds many kin together. The cattle are collected from the groom's relatives and distributed among the bride's. Of forty head, for instance, twenty may go to her immediate family and ten each to her father's and her mother's kin.
• It circulates. The cattle received for a daughter are used to obtain a wife for her brother. Bridewealth is a kind of revolving fund that turns daughters into daughters-in-law.

Bridewealth is commonest in patrilineal societies. It also occurs in matrilineal ones, usually in smaller amounts, since the children belong to the wife's descent group whatever is paid.

The detailed tracing of who gives and receives which animal has been teased as "the right foreleg of the ox school of anthropology". The point of the detail is that bridewealth is far more than a commercial transaction.

B. Bride service

Bride service, or suitor service, is the arrangement by which a son-in-law works for his father-in-law to compensate the family for the loss of their daughter's services.

Examples

Schlegel and Eloul found bride service most typical of egalitarian food collectors, especially in the Americas.

Duration and nature

• Duration: a single task among the Inuit, where a groom may meet the obligation by catching a seal for his in-laws; from two months to two years among the Kaska; three to five years among the Subanun; many years among the San.
• Nature: hunting for the in-laws among the Tungus and Siriono; living in the girl's household as a working member among the Lepcha, Chukchee and Muria; fetching wood and water in the Mexican village of Tepoztlán.
• A token form: among the Hopi the bride spends some days before the wedding grinding corn for her mother-in-law, and the groom weaves her wedding garments, before the couple settle with her family.

Reasons

• An obligation in itself, as among the Inuit.
• A substitute for bride price. Among the Ho the bride price was so high that many remained unmarried; service offered a way out. The Gond, Muria, Kamar and Baiga use it for the same reason, and it is the usual resort of a poor suitor.
• An addition to bride price. Among the Kaska, Lepcha and Subanun, payment and service go together.

C. Exchange of women

In exchange marriage a sister or other female relative of the groom is given in return for the bride.

• World examples: the Tiv of Nigeria, the Yanomamö of the Venezuela-Brazil border and the Mundugumor of New Guinea. These are egalitarian horticultural societies in which women contribute much to subsistence.
• Indian examples: reported among the Munda of Jharkhand, the Khond and Gadaba of Odisha, the Koya, Yanadi and Yerukula of Andhra Pradesh, the Bhotia of Uttarakhand and the Bhil of Rajasthan. In these tribes some brides are exchanged and others are obtained by bride price.

Reasons:

1. It creates reciprocity and perpetuates alliances between families, lineages and clans (Malinowski; Lévi-Strauss).
2. It removes the need for bride price where that is burdensome.
3. It produces solidarity among the groups that exchange. Lévi-Strauss distinguished direct exchange between two groups from indirect exchange round a circle of groups.
4. It keeps property and support within a circle of relatives.

D. Gift exchange and prestation

In gift exchange both sides give. Goods flow from the groom's kin to the bride's and from the bride's to the groom's, often beginning long before the wedding and continuing for years after it.

Among the Andaman Islanders, Radcliffe-Brown recorded that once a boy and girl made known their wish to marry, their parents stopped speaking to each other directly and sent gifts of food and other objects through a third person until the marriage was completed.

Mauss and the idea of prestation

Marcel Mauss, the nephew and student of Emile Durkheim, gave the classic account in The Gift (1925; English translation 1954).

• Three obligations. Every gift carries the obligation to give, to receive and to repay. This is the principle of reciprocity.
• Lasting ties. Gifts link scattered families in prolonged relations of creditor and debtor, and so create solidarity.
• Prestation. Mauss used this term for the whole system of obligatory giving. A prestation is a "total social phenomenon": in it economic, legal, political, religious and moral institutions all find expression at once. The gift is never only a thing; it carries the identity, status and prestige of the giver.
• Examples. The Kula exchange of the Trobriand Islanders, the potlatch of the Northwest Coast, and marriage gifts everywhere.

Marriage gifts also give the new couple a start and mark the status of the two families. See also our note on Malinowski, who described the Kula.

E. Dowry

Dowry is a substantial transfer of goods or money from the bride's family to the bride and her new household. In the classic formulation the wealth remains with the couple and is often defined as the property of the bride.

• A conjugal fund. S. J. Tambiah described dowry as a fund on which the new couple can draw.
• An early inheritance. Jack Goody saw it as the daughter's share of her parents' property, handed over at marriage instead of at their death. Nothing returns to the family that gives it.
• Mostly movable property. Money, jewellery, furniture and animals; it seldom includes the land and buildings that pass to sons.
• Indirect dowry. The groom's kin give wealth to the bride's father, who passes some or all of it to the bride. It resembles bridewealth in its source and dowry in its destination. Among the Basseri of southern Iran, the groom's father gives cash to the bride's father, who uses it to buy household goods and rugs for his daughter (Fredrik Barth).

Where dowry is found

Dowry is rare and is not randomly distributed. It is concentrated around the Mediterranean and in East and South Asia, and in societies descended from them. It was common in medieval and Renaissance Europe. In these regions it is strongly associated with hypergamy, the marriage of women into families of higher standing.

Theories of dowry

Frederic Pryor found that dowry societies tend to be those where women contribute little to primary subsistence, where stratification is marked, and where a man may have only one wife. Three explanations have been offered.

All three treat dowry as competitive, and all expect the bride's kin to take part. In cross-cultural tests by Gaulin and Boster, dowry was more closely tied to the combination of stratification and monogamy than to private property or to women's low part in farming.

Goody added a broader contrast: bridewealth belongs with the hoe agriculture of Africa, and dowry with the plough agriculture and class societies of Europe and Asia.

Bridewealth and dowry compared

Marriage payments in India

• Tribes. Bride price is the general custom, with service and exchange as alternatives for those who cannot pay.
• Castes. Dowry has been the practice of the higher castes, linked with hypergamy. Tambiah related it to the traditional idea of a woman's own property (stridhan).
• Change. M. N. Srinivas noted that groups which formerly paid bride price have shifted to dowry as they rose in status, as part of sanskritisation. Some tribal communities have followed.
• Law. The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 makes the giving and taking of dowry an offence. The practice has nevertheless persisted and has been a cause of serious harm to women.

For the scholars named, see Indian anthropologists. For current issues, see tribal India today.

Using this topic in a UPSC answer

• Define marriage payments and list the five forms with the direction of each.
• Quote Murdock's frequencies to show that bridewealth is the norm and dowry the exception.
• Give four or five functions of bridewealth, with "progeny price" and the circulating fund.
• For dowry, name Goody and Tambiah, then the three theories of Boserup, Schlegel and Eloul, and Gaulin and Boster.
• Bring in Mauss on reciprocity for gift exchange.
• End with India: bride price among tribes, the shift to dowry, and the 1961 Act.

For presentation, see our guide to anthropology answer writing with diagrams, thinkers and case studies.

Frequently asked questions

What are marriage payments?

Marriage payments, or marriage finances, are the transfers of goods, money or labour between the families of the bride and groom before, at or after marriage. The main forms are bridewealth, bride service, exchange of women, gift exchange and dowry.

What is the difference between bridewealth and dowry?

Bridewealth passes from the groom's kin to the bride's kin and is used by them to obtain wives for their sons. Dowry passes from the bride's kin to the bride and her new household, as her share of the family property.

Why is bridewealth also called progeny price?

Because the payment establishes the husband's legal right to the children born of the marriage. Where it has not been paid in full, his claim to the children may be incomplete.

Which form of marriage payment is the most common?

Bridewealth is the most common. In Murdock's sample of 542 societies nearly half paid substantial bride price, while only about 4 per cent gave dowry.

What is indirect dowry?

In indirect dowry the groom's kin give wealth to the bride's father, who passes part or all of it on to the bride. It comes from the groom's side, like bridewealth, but ends with the bride, like dowry.

Why does dowry occur in some societies?

Boserup linked dowry to women's small part in agriculture; Schlegel and Eloul to private property and status; Gaulin and Boster to competition for wealthy husbands in stratified, monogamous societies.

What is prestation?

Prestation is Marcel Mauss's term for the system of obligatory gift-giving, with its duties to give, to receive and to repay. He called it a total social phenomenon because it involves economic, legal, religious and moral relations together.

What is bride service?

Bride service is work done by the groom for his wife's family, before or after marriage, in place of or in addition to bride price. It is common among foragers and among those too poor to pay.