Bridewealth, sometimes called bride price, is money, livestock or other property given by a groom or his family to the family of the bride at marriage, documented across large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Melanesia/Papua New Guinea, where in exceptional cases payments have reportedly reached $100,000. It is among the most anciently documented marriage customs in written history: the Code of Hammurabi already regulates a 'purchase price' paid into the house of a father-in-law, and the Hebrew Bible similarly specifies a payment for a virgin. E. E. Evans-Pritchard's classic ethnography of the Nuer people of South Sudan (fieldwork from 1930, published 1940) is one of the most influential modern anthropological documentations of the practice. Anthropologist Philippe Rospabé has argued against interpreting bridewealth as a literal purchase of a wife, proposing instead that it functions as a symbolic gesture acknowledging, but never paying off, the husband's permanent debt to the wife's parents.
Facts
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountSub-Saharan Africa, where it remains widespread and central to marriage validation; parts of Asia (Thailand, China, India, Myanmar, Central Asia); and Melanesia/Papua New Guinea. 1 Documented YearSourced to the subject's own accountThe year E. E. Evans-Pritchard published Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer, his major documentation of Nuer cattle bridewealth. Cross-Tradition Connections
Held Differently
The reverse-direction counterpart: dowry moves from the bride's family to the groom's, bridewealth moves from the groom's family to the bride's. The two are documented in different, largely non-overlapping regions rather than as alternatives within one society.
Associated With
Bridewealth payments commonly accompany polygynous marriage arrangements in the same societies where both customs are documented.
Studied By
Sources
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