Dowry

Template:Cleanup A dowry is a gift of money or valuables given by the bride's family to the groom and the newly formed household at the time of their marriage. It is often a reciprocal part of a similar gift given from the groom and his family to the bride called a bride price. The two customs have been so intertwined, dowry is often used to mean bride price. It has been an ancient and widespread practice of unknown origin. The original intent seems to be to help with expenses in the creation of the new family, help bond the families and provide a support for the bride in case of future problems such as widowhood or divorce. Today, it is practiced throughout the world in various areas and cultures, with some controversy over the rolie it plays in domestic violence and abuse of women.

Historically

Historically most societies have brides go to their husband's families, and often they could not own property. Usually, the husband has been primarily responsible for the economic prosperity of the household, while women cared for children and the household needs. When a woman or girl would marry into a family that was agricultural, she often was welcomed as another worker. In families that were more prestigious, however, she may have been viewed as another mouth to feed. In such cases, the dowry would show an acknowledgement of the privelege she was to have as a member of her husband's family. The earliest dowries were usually land entitlements, but later were attached to various commodities and even later to cash.

Unmarried women have been seen to attract stigma and tarnish family reputations in soem earlier societies. In these cases,it have been in the bride's family's interest to marry off their daughter as soon as she wass eligible^{[citation needed]}. The size of the necessary dowry was directly proportional to the groom's social status, thus making it virtually impossible for lower class women to marry into upper class families. In cases where a woman's family was too poor to afford a dowry,she may have been forbidden from ever marrying, or became a concubine to a richer man who could afford to support a large household. Dowries have been part of civil law in almost all countries, Europe included. Dowries were important components of ancient Greekand Roman marriages.

Conversely, the similar custom of property given to the bride by the groom and his family has beem called adower or a bride price. This gift has been traditionally used to show gratitude to the family of the girl for "giving" her to the husband's family. Some have benefited greatly from this practice.

In either case, the bride has usually been entitled to her dowry or dower in the event of widowhood, hence the terms "dowry" and "dower" are sometimes confused. The children of the bride were also traditionally included in inheritance of the dowry, and often this provided the only support such children had where there were other children by other women involved.

The Ancient World

It is described in the oldest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi as a pre-existing custom, where it prescribed only regulations for how dowry was to be handled. The code also included regulations for a bride price. If a woman died without sons, her husband had to refund the dowry but could deduct the value of the bride price, the dowry would normally have been the larger of the sums. It marks the first record of long-lasting customs, such as the wife being entitled to her dowry at her husband's death. Her dowry was inheritable only by her own children, not by her husband's children by other women.

In Homeric times, the usual Greek practice was of a bride price. When dowries were practiced in classical times, there would also be a (smaller) bride price being given by the groom to the bride's family. Ancient Romans and Athenian Greeks did not allow women to own property. A widow needed a male relative to administer her estate that would included the dowry. The Roman Tacitus noted that among the Germans, the practice was the reverse: a groom settled a dower on the bride. The dowry only became part of ancient Egyptian culture after they were under the Greek and Roman influence. Women in Egypt were always legally allowed to own property and manage their own affairs, so probably they had less need of this type of provision.

Europe

With the advent of Christianity and religious orders, women brought their dowries with them when they became nuns, as they were becoming the "bride" of Christ.

Dowry in Europe continued through Victorian England. It was seen as an early payment of her inheritance, and as such only daughters who had not received their dowry were entitled to part of the estate when their parents died. If a couple died without children, the dowry reverted to the bride's family.

Failure to provide a customary, or agreed-upon, dowry could call off a marriage. William Shakespeare made use of this in King Lear — one of Cordelia's wooers ceases to woo her on hearing that King Lear will give her no dowry — and Measure for Measure — Claudio and Juliet's premarital sex was brought about by their families' wrangling over dowry after the betrothal, and Angelo's motive for forswearing his betrothal with Mariana is the loss of her dowry at sea.

Folklorists often interpret Cinderella and its variants as competition between the stepmother and the stepdaughter for resources, which may include the need to provide a dowry. Gioacchino Rossini's opera La Cenerentola, makes this economic basis explicit: Don Magnifico wishes to make his own daughters' dowry larger, to attract a grander match, which is impossible if he must provide a third dowry.

One common penalty of the time for the kidnapping and rape of unmarried women was that the abductor or rapist had to provide the woman's dowry.

Providing dowries for poor women was regarded as a form of charity. 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 some parts of Europe, land dowries were common. In Grafschaft Bentheim, for instance, it was not uncommon for people who had no sons to give a land dowry to their new son-in-law with the stipulation attached that with the land comes the family name whence it came, thus a condition of the land dowry was that the groom would take on the family name of his bride.

In Europe it is common for the bride's family to pay for the majority of the wedding costs.

India

The origins of the dowry custom in India is lost in antiquity, although there is some evidence for it being practiced prior to 300 B.C.E. among the upper castes such as the Brahmins and Kshatriyas. It is unknown if it was brought with the conquering armies and mass marriages of Alexander the Great, or if it was practiced prior to that. The earliest dowries were usually of land.

The Indian dowry system changed under the colonial rule of the Brittish Empire, where farmers were subjected to taxes and foreign currency in ways they were not previously familir. Previously, some villages had a socialistic type of system with the village as a whole "owning" the land. In these cases, they did not give dowries that related to land. Prior to the British Dowry system and continuing today, other wealth given during weddings was the jewelry/ornaments passed from mother to daughter for generations.

In India, although illegal, the dowry practice is still common. It is especially common in arranged marriages and rural areas and widely recognized as a traditional ritual of marriage. Demanding dowry has been prohibited by law as of 1961, but with many loopholes in the law. One such loophole involved the punnishment of the husband's family for demanding dowry, but the release of such dowry funds to the bride when needed in cases of widowhood.

The legal controls on the practice of dowry has only some impact on the practice. A new twist on the custom is the practice of some of the husband's families are continuing to demand more and more dowry long after the marriage is performed. The practice of SATI, or self-immolation of the bride upon becomming a widow, has been developed from ancient Hidu stories about a particularly faithful and loving wife showing her devotion by jumping together with her husband on his funeral pyre. In modern India this practice has not ended, but taken new twists. Unfortunately, often this immolation is not voluntary, and in 1999 there were about 6,000 reported dowry deaths or bride burning(s) where a woman's family did not succumb to the demands of continued dowry. It is noted that this problem is severely under-reported, and many deaths noted as "suicide" and "accidental" are often under very suspicious circumstances. It must be noted, however, that that figure represents less than 0.0001% of the total population in India and does not charictarize any type of social norm.

The girl child's dowry and wedding expenses may send her family into a huge debt trap. In rural areas, families sell their land holdings, while the urban poor sell their houses.

Conversely, many times a women can still come back to the courts and collect more dowry if she feels it necessary. The government of India made several laws detailing severe punishment to anyone demanding dowry and a law in Indian Penal Code (Section 498A). While it gives boost to a woman and her family, it also may put a man and his family in a great disadvantage. Misuse of this law by women in urban India and several incidents of extortion of money from the husband by the wife and her family have come to light. The law states jailing of ANY person the wife names in a written complaint. Old people and even children have been jailed by such misuse. The law has a misandry tone to it. The motive for the removal of a requirement of evidence (under section 113B) is unique to this application of the penal code and currently not clearly understood.

Increasing education and awareness has reduced the instances of this and in some areas notably West Bengal it has virtually been wiped out. Actually education is the biggest factor in ending forced dowries, as the Bengalis(residents of West Bengal) were Great Britain's first colony on the subcontinent and benefited most from the education system of the English The practice was eradicated there primarily due to the combination of the powerful influence of education illustrating multitudes of alternate choices and the enforcement of the outlawing of the practice by Lord Bentik of the East India Company.

China and Asia

The similarity between the dowry system in China and the dowry system in India is that it serves as a way for the family to secure some of its wealth for its daughters, as women could not inherit property in the orthodox Confucian society of China. However, there are many important differences between the two and these include:

• Unlike the Indian dowry system which was brought in by the foreign colonialists and imperialists, the Chinese dowry system is indigenous and has lasted for thousands of years.

• Unlike the Indian dowry system in which the transactions seldom end with the wedding, the Chinese dowry system is often an one-shot deal that ends with the wedding.

• Ancient China (as well as modern China to a certain degree) is a patriarchal society dominated by the orthodox Confucian traditions, in which it is a great shame for a man who cannot provide for his wife and thus has to survive on his wife's assets, such as her income or her dowry. Since dowry is one-shot deal, it is optional for the bride's family to contribute additional financial support after the wedding in order to improve the family relations. It is commonly considered as a shame if the groom's family is requesting additional support. As a result, the dowry is often served as a private savings, properties, jewelries. The groom and his family have control over the properties, but far less power in controlling the private savings and jewelries. Although the Chinese wife might have greater autonomy than her Indian counterpart, the orthodox Confucian tradition dictates that the dowry assets should be used in the following order to support her husband when the assets of husband is not enough. The bride would only allow to use her private savings and personal properties to support:
  • the eldest son's education when his livelihood can be provided but not enough for his education,
  • the remaining sons' education when their livelihood can be provided but not enough for their education,
  • the livelihood of the eldest son when there is not enough to do so,
  • the livelihood of the remaining sons when there is not enough to do so,
  • the livelihood of daughters until they marry,
  • the livelihood of the parents,
  • the education of the groom's brothers when there is enough for their livelihood but not enough for their education (often until the brothers marry),
  • the education of daughters.

• Most importantly, due to the patriarchal society dominated by the orthodox Confucian traditions in ancient China (as well as modern China to a certain degree), bride price was and still is far more prevalent than dowry in Chinese society than Indian society. As a result, the amount of wealth for the bride price in China was (and still is) often greater than that of the wealth for the dowry. Furthermore, it was customary for the traditional Chinese society to accept the fact that the bride and her family have little or no dowry, but it is not acceptable for the groom and his family having little or no bride price.

• In the traditional Chinese society, dowry is also a symbol of social status, and thus in China, especially in the northern part of China, dowry is shown in public during the traditional Chinese wedding: when the wedding procession from the bride's home is on its way to the groom's home, the wealth of the dowry in forms other than money was carried behind the sedan of the bride and maids of honor. The presence of dowry is more important than maid of honor because in China, particularly the northern part, it was acceptable to lack the maid of honor, but not acceptable for lacking a form of dowry, no matter how small it is.

• Unlike the relatively stable Indian society, there were drastic changes in the customs and practice of dowry and bride price in China due to the political movements in China (especially due to the Cultural Revolution). During Mao's reign, both the dowry and the bride price were denounced as being feudalistic and materialistic, thus degrading morals, and traditional Chinese weddings that were associated with dowry and bride price became nearly extinct. Due to the Chinese economic reform, there was a resurgence of traditional Chinese weddings and along with it, there is a gradual come back of both the dowry and the bride price in China since 1980s, and then rapidly in recent years because the current economic development in China has accelerated this comeback greatly. Again, this recent comeback reflects the Chinese tradition in which the bride price is far more important than the dowry.

The United States

Marriage has traditionally been a state issue in the United States, not under the Federal legal system. Dowry has not been included in the civil law in all of states except Louisiana, which is heavily influenced by the Napoleonic Code and Roman Civil Law. In Louisiana, Dowry rights are protected where in the other states they are not recognized and property rights upon any such dowry must be proved in another way.

The United States has kept alive an original intent of the Dowry system in an unusual way. The Hope Chest, or Glory Chest as it is called in the Australian outback, was a method to provide a type of dowry for the daughter while pioneering the frontier. In the UK, it's often known as the Bottom Drawer, a place where things are bought, collected, made, stored. In the difficult situation presented in the westward movement in the United States in the 1800 s, the mother would teach her daughter how to make the things she would need to start up her household. Together they made items like quilts, aprons, china ware, pots and anything that would have sentimental value for the present and the future. These would fill the chest, and often became precious heirlooms for many generations. "A ready hand and heart, my girl, that's what we're making, not just a hope chest, a hope that you're prepared for any eventuality".

In the United States, this custom has been preserved by many American woman and was quite popular through the 1950 s. There is some resurgence in the custom and some activity on the internet to help provide networks of goods and services and ideas for all types of Hope Chests. In the twenty first century, this Hope Chest has become something more than only a preparation for practical married life, something beyond the property aspects of a "dowry." This movement contemporarily serves to help young women stay chaste and ready to give to her prospective husband and family rather than only receive.

Laura Ingles Wilder, the author of the popular "Little House on the Prairie" series records that by the time she was a woman, she had more than a dozen quilts in her chest.

External links

• Female foeticide in India
• Female Foeticide
• Counter male fixation to fight adverse sex ratio in Punjab
• Sex ratio keeps getting worse
• Man dies of shock as wife bears baby girl
• Misuse of dowry laws
• Anti-dowry laws in India
• mothers and sister suffer due to abuse and misuse of Anti dowry laws
• Matrimonial websites for the people who oppose dowry system
• A Self help website for the people who have been abused by the Indian anti-dowry Laws 498A

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