AN341 Lecture Notes - Bride Price, Jack Goody, Dowry
Document Summary
Marriage involves some transfer of property; the moment of transfers. Continuity of descent group- acquiring wives requires payment as compensation from husbands (bridewealth) and alliance payment for affinity (dowry and bridewealth) Land goes up in value, dowry never does. Jural explanation: transfer of rights over woman and future progeny (bridewealth: you are buying the rights to her children, her sexuality and everything about her if she gets divorced the husband gets the rights to everything. Subsistence: simple agriculture, classless, labour of women valued (african female farming system) Direction: grooms kin to brides kin (africa), pars to bride (m/e); intergenerational, lineage or lateral. Timing: at marriage (prompt) or delayed (deferred) e. g. middle-east; type: cattle, other. Function: payment for labour, children, sexual rights; nominal. Symbolic (prestige) or substantial payments; seals the contract (me) Use: merged with brides family wealth; by male kin (brother) to obtain a wife.
