Bride price, also known as bride wealth, bride token, is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom. (Compare 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.) The agreed bride price may or may not intended to reflect the perceived value of the girl or young woman.
The same culture may simultaneously practice both dowry and bride price. Many cultures practiced bride price prior to existing records.
Read more about Bride Price: Function, The Tradition Today, The Tradition in Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words bride and/or price:
“A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.”
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950)
“The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old- fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.”
—J.G. (James Graham)