Bride price

,, or , is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be  to or is just about to marry. Bride price can be compared to dowry, which is paid to the groom, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. Some cultures may practice both dowry and bride price simultaneously. Many cultures practiced bride pricing prior to existing records.

The tradition of giving bride price is practised in many, the , and in , notably those in. The amount changing hands may range from a token to continue the traditional ritual, to many thousands of US dollars in some marriages in, and as much as a $100,000 in exceptionally large bride prices in parts of where bride price is customary.

Function
Bridewealth is commonly paid in a currency that is not generally used for other types of exchange. According to French Philippe Rospabé, its payment does therefore not entail the purchase of a woman, as was thought in the early twentieth century. Instead, it is a purely symbolic gesture acknowledging (but never paying off) the husband's permanent debt to the wife's parents.

Dowries exist in societies where capital is more valuable than manual labor. For instance, in Middle Ages Europe, the family of a bride-to-be was compelled to offer a dowry — land, cattle and money — to the family of the husband-to-be. Bridewealth exists in societies where manual labor is more important than capital. In Sub-Saharan Africa where land was abundant and there were few or no domesticated animals, manual labor was more valuable than capital, and therefore bridewealth dominated.

An explanation for dowry and bride price is that bride price is common in  societies which have a relative scarcity of available women. In societies where women have little personal wealth, dowry is instead common since there is a relative scarcity of wealthy men who can choose from many potential women when marrying.

Mesopotamia
The mentions bride price in various laws as an established custom. It is not the payment of the bride price that is prescribed, but the regulation of various aspects:
 * a man who paid the bride price but looked for another bride would not get a refund, but he would if the father of the bride refused the match
 * if a wife died without sons, her father was entitled to the return of her dowry, minus the value of the bride price.

Jewish tradition
The discusses the practice of paying a bride price to the father of a virgin at Shemot (Exodus) 22:16-17 (JPS translation):  “And if a man entice a virgin that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.” Devarim (Deuteronomy) 22:28-29 similarly states, “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her; he may not put her away all his days.”

Jewish law in ancient times insisted upon the betrothed couple signing a , a formal contract. The ketubah provided for an amount to be paid by the husband in the event he divorced his wife (i.e. if he gives her a ; women cannot divorce their husbands in orthodox Jewish law); or by his estate in the event of his death. The provision in the ketubah replaced the bride price tradition recited in the Torah, which was payable at the time of the marriage by the groom.

This innovation came about because the bride price created a major social problem: many young prospective husbands could not raise the amount at the time when they would normally be expected to marry. So, to enable these young men to marry, the rabbis, in effect, delayed the time that the amount would be payable, when they would be more likely to have the sum. The object in either case was financial protection for the wife should the husband die, divorce her or disappear. The only difference between the two systems was the timing of the payment.

In fact, the rabbis were so insistent on the bride having the “benefit of the ketubah” that some even described a marriage without one as being merely concubinage, because the bride would lack the benefit of the financial settlement in case of divorce or death of the husband; without which the woman and her children could become a burden on the community. However, the husband could refuse to pay if a divorce was on account of adultery by the wife.

To this day in traditional Jewish weddings between opposite-sex couples, the groom gives the bride an object of value, such as a wedding ring, to fulfill the requirement in the ketubah. The object given must have a certain minimal value to satisfy the obligation - e.g. it cannot be a prize out of a Cracker Jack box, but, modernly, the value is otherwise nominal and symbolic.

Ancient Greece
Some of the marriage settlements mentioned in the ' and ' suggest that bride price was a custom of. The language used for various marriage transactions, however, may blur distinctions between bride price and dowry, and a third practice called “indirect dowry,” whereby the groom hands over property to the bride which is then used to establish the new household. “Homeric society” is a fictional construct involving, though drawing on the historical customs of various times and places in the Greek world. At the time when the were composed, “primitive” practices such as bride price and polygamy were no longer part of Greek society. Mentions of them preserve, if they have a historical basis at all, customs dating from the Age of Migrations (c. 1200–1000 BC) and the two centuries following.

In the Iliad, promises  that he can take a bride without paying the bride price (Greek hednon), instead receiving a dowry (pherne). In the Odyssey, the least arguable references to bride price are in the marriage settlements for, the sister of ; , the daughter of , who demanded cattle for her; and the goddess herself, whose husband  threatens to make her father  return the bride price given for her, because she was adulterous. It is possible that the Homeric “bride price” is part of a between the prospective husband and the bride’s father, but while gift exchange is a fundamental practice of aristocratic friendship and hospitality, it occurs rarely, if at all, in connection with marriage arrangements.

Islamic law
Islamic law commands a groom to give the bride a gift called a prior to the consummation of the marriage. A mahr differs from the standard meaning of bride-price in that it is not to the family of the bride, but to the wife to keep for herself; it is thus more accurately described as a dower. In the, it is mentioned in chapter 4, , verse 4 as follows:

"And give to the women (whom you marry) their Mahr [obligatory bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage] with a good heart; but if they, of their own good pleasure, remit any part of it to you, take it and enjoy it without fear of any harm (as Allah has made it lawful). Useful information about bridal dowry in Iran"

Morning gifts
Morning gifts, which might be arranged by the bride’s father rather than the bride, are given to the bride herself. The name derives from the Germanic tribal custom of giving them the morning after the wedding night. The woman might have control of this morning gift during the lifetime of her husband, but is entitled to it when widowed. If the amount of her inheritance is settled by law rather than agreement, it may be called dower. Depending on legal systems and the exact arrangement, she may not be entitled to dispose of it after her death, and may lose the property if she remarries. Morning gifts were preserved for many centuries in, a union where the wife’s inferior social status was held to prohibit her children from inheriting a noble’s titles or estates. In this case, the morning gift would support the wife and children. Another legal provision for widowhood was, in which property, often land, would be held in joint tenancy, so that it would automatically go to the widow on her husband’s death.

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