Bride price
Bride price, bride price or dowry means a sum of money or a possession that is passed to the bride's parents on the occasion of a marriage by the groom or his family, mostly to her father. The designation as a dower is ethno- sociological preferred because the bride price the meaning of " buy and sell a woman " resonates, but this does not correspond in many cultures the understanding of this practice. In contrast to the dower is a " morning gift " from the groom to the bride, partly for their future security. In contrast, a " dowry " of the bride is brought into the marriage.
In Germany, the imposition of a dowry is immoral because of the freedom of marriage is allowed only a symbolic amount to comply with a traditional custom. The institution of bride price is already mentioned in the 3700 years old Babylonian Collection of Laws " Code of Hammurabi " and can also be found in the biblical book of Genesis 2 and in the Jewish Talmud.
Function and the amount of the bride price
The bride price can have the following tasks:
- He sealed the marriage contract solemn manner,
- He contributes to the durability of marriage,
- He compensated the group of origin of the wife for the loss of a member.
In some cultures, husbands understand the bride price as a " purchase of the woman" and derive appropriate disposal and ownership from.
The bride price is determined in its height or composition by wedding customs and usually the social status of the Parties dependent. It is in relation to average income is often very high, which can lead to a debt.
The British anthropologist Jack Goody brought 1973 bride price and dowry in a wider context of property relations. He found the dower matrilineal and patrilineal especially in ( unilinear ) companies. In African nations with dowries he found a sociopolitical equality ( egalitarian ), status differences were insignificant at marriage. Dower find at unilinear descent groups ( lineages ) that act as the central group and control the possession, and was also with plural marriage ( polygamy ) connected. After Goody women as part of the payment of a dowry are the subject of a transfer of ownership, not its recipient as the dowry.
The French neo-Marxist economic anthropologist Claude Meillassoux adopted in 1975 that the practice of bride price have developed from an underlying system of coordinated woman exchange between descent groups, which a system of bride rape was preceded by.
Forms of bride price
In the Arab culture of bride price is often bypassed by a bride from his own family is married, usually a parallel cousin ( the bint ʿ amm, daughter of father's brother ). With the Islamization of this marriage rule has also spread to other countries, although the Koran preferred this form of relatives marriage in any way.
The Uzbeks in Central Asia, formerly as an alternative to a bridal price a woman barter ( Qarch quda risk ).
In some societies can be processed as a replacement for the bride-price "Value " of the woman as a " bride service " ( bride service); in other cultures is not understood as payment, but as proof of the groom being able to provide for his wife this service. Was at the Hoopa - Yurok Indians of North America and a groom muster only half the bride price, he had to work off at the bride's family in the form of a " half- Marriage " the other half.
In southern Africa, the bride price is negotiated ( lobola ) is usually a certain number of cattle, which are to be delivered gradually to the family of origin of the bride (example: the Bantu people of the Luvale; Nelson Mandela should also pay a lobola ). Reverses the bride back to her family after marriage, shall be returned to the cattle or to pay the equivalent value. If prolonged drought leads to the loss of livestock, men can no longer afford the bride price - marriages and related ceremonial celebrations remain off. In the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania, the height of the bride-price is 25 cattle ( 23 cows and 2 bulls ) in them are not uncommon five wives, some men have 30
In the Tolai in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea a bride price in the form of the traditional taboo shell money is still paid to the bride's parents, in 2012, the " value" of a woman was an average of 400 shell necklaces of 1.8 meters in length, 400 euro. In the otherwise modern Tolai ( around 120,000 members) of land, basically rests with the women and their mothers side descent groups ( lineages ), while men accumulate wealth mainly in the form of shell money.