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The logic behind dowries was that women were a burden since they would be relying on the husband for food, shelter and protection. They were leaving their orig

The logic behind dowries was that women were a burden since they would be relying on the husband for food, shelter and protection. They were leaving their original family, thus reducing the number of people who'd need to be fed and sheltered, while the husband's family was taking on that duty, thus they claimed to deserve compensation. Such cultures suffered from similar other ills like mistreating or kicking out widows or, in India, the practice of having the wife burn alive on the husband's funeral pyre. Their persistence nowadays (particularly in wealthier societal strata) is largely cultural inertia and greed, as of course nowadays in all wealth levels it is very normal for women to earn their own living too. In my family, dowry for the current generation has been passed off as "gifts intended for the couple's married life", which although still doesn't sit quite right with me, is at least not as exploitative and not explicitly asked for. It mostly boils down to expensive gifts of clothes, kitchenware, makeup etc which can be useful when establishing a family.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
> They were leaving their original family, thus reducing the number of people who'd need to be fed and sheltered, while the husband's family was taking on that duty, thus they claimed to deserve compensation Wow, that's an insane perspective. So even your own daughters were thought of as a burden?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 3y ago
  In many societies, women's labour was significantly undervalued compared to men's, so the more women, relative to men there are in your household, the more stress it puts on your resources. Also, if women in a society inherit nothing (Because it all goes to sons), whomever they marry is going to expect a dowry, instead. Which puts further financial stress on the family, to save up for said dowry. Which is made more difficult by point #1. Also, women often married at a younger age than men, which again, would make the dowry issue financially ruinous for a family. The longer you scrimp and save, the harder it will be for your daughter to get a good match... ---- Here's another fun bit (from ancient Greece, but plenty of other parts of the world shared the same fucked-up dynamic.) Women weren't allowed to own property. What happens when a woman is the only child, and her dad dies? She'd be forced to marry one of her close male relatives - usually an uncle, to 'keep the inheritance in the family'. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epikleros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epikleros
  - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
    This is going to be a very western perspective, but I thought that historically women's labour has been mostly valued as a homemaker. Is that not the case in a lot of non-western societies? I'm also wondering if beauty plays a role in dowries. If a woman is beautiful does that mean she might have a lower dowry, or they don't care about beauty at all?
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      The issue is that, as is also sometimes a common mistake in the West, homemaking was seen as a part of being a woman and not as valuable labor. Yes, it's hypocritical, but most of these practices are. Yes, beauty and other circumstances would offset dowries, since of course if the husband was eager to marry her, he'd try to incentivize it.
    - vkou 3y ago
      > This is going to be a very western perspective, but I thought that historically women's labour has been mostly valued as a homemaker. Homemaker labour didn't pay well. It still doesn't, and it didn't back then. It's vital to the operation of a household, but it doesn't put food on the table, or earn money, which allow you to buy any of the things the household needs, but can't make for itself. ---- Note: Spinning was a large component of household work - which did allow women to earn money, by selling any surplus textiles they produced. There's a reason that 'spinster' became a synonym for 'old, unmarried woman'. Unfortunately, keeping your family clothed was a full-time spinning job to begin with - thousands of hours of work a year. And if you were to sell the products you produced outside the household, you wouldn't earn much with them - as a 'profession', spinning did not pay well at all.
    - roncesvalles 3y ago
      >If a woman is beautiful does that mean she might have a lower dowry Yes in practice this is what happens. There was a nasty rumor going around in my family that one of my distant uncles (a generally dapper guy) married the "ugly" daughter of a rich businessman because the dowry offered was high enough to set him up for life.
  - 3y ago
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Yep, it was very messed up. It also went both ways, my maternal grandmother suffered decades of abuse from her son because she didn't consider her married daughters to be 'her' family. It took a plan of forcibly sneaking her out, moving her away and threatening her son with legal action to get her away. Even after that she struggled to accept being a 'burden' on her daughters.
  - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
    This is the first time I've heard of a cultural practice that I cannot fathom. Not "wow that was crazy for the time", but "I don't understand how this ever made sense". I guess it's borne out of extreme resource scarcity? The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      I can't really fathom it either, it feels somewhat like a self-reinforcing cycle which may have started from the earlier hunter-gatherer days. I'm just satisfied that in our recent generations we've quickly started to abandon a lot of these malignant ideas.
    - kelipso 3y ago
      Lol, is this some sort of act? Having to take care of aging parents and thus them being a burden on their children is a fairly common trope in western film and literature. Common worldwide.
      - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
        I actually typed out an addendum about children and elderly being burdens but adults not being, but deleted it because I thought it was extraneous since I was specifying "permanent burden regardless of what they do". Children/elderly are not permanent burdens because they grow up/die and they can sometimes do useful things. The difference here is that women are classified as burdens regardless of what they do. Cook, clean, take care of the house, your family, your husband, etc. Doesn't matter, you're still a burden. That's fucked up.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > Wow, that's an insane perspective. So even your own daughters were thought of as a burden? Well, sons too, but they were a net positive because they worked and brought money home. If women were allowed to work for (non-trivial) money in traditional indian culture they'd be a net positive too.
jwond 3y ago
> the practice of having the wife burn alive on the husband's funeral pyre known as "sati" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lelanthran 3y ago
> In my family, dowry for the current generation has been passed off as "gifts intended for the couple's married life", I married twice[1] and neither times was the issue of dowry even considered[2]. Nor for anyone I know (close family, extended family, just about every indian person in South Africa). [1] Serially, not in parallel :-) [2] Nor "expensive gifts" as a euphemism for dowry.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  That's nice to hear. I had been pretty naive to the euphemism since it seemed to be entirely the wife's family's call (and to an extent the extended family avoided those conversations guessing that we would be opposed to it, having grown up in the West). I only managed to piece it together when it came to marriages in my immediate family. They just claimed that it was stuff that their daughter would end up needing to buy anyway and for the most part that is how it turned out, but I have also heard plenty of gossiping about how someone's daughter-in-law didn't bring X or Y thing. I still have a few years before I think I'll be ready to deal with relationships, but of course will definitely be making it clear that I have no expectations of 'gifts'.
throwaway8955 3y ago
I'm in India, looking to get married to someone I have known and loved for a while now. Our families are not too happy about it. Both of us are about 30. We are working professionals with decent finances and fair amount of independence, so despite them not being too happy about it, they're talking among themselves and setting up things. This context was important given the topic, because a topic that frequently comes up in these family discussions is that 1. the girl's parents insist that if I decide to marry their daughter, they wouldn't "give us anything". This has been said a few times to my face, to my partner, and to my parents too. 2. they've asked a few times subtly if there are any "demands" from my side of the family (most likely to bring it up as another obstacle towards peaceful proceedings). 3. they've offered that they would give some small stuff like a bed, a cupboard, etc. to us as a "blessing for our married life" despite both of us politely declining for it. It's honestly humiliating and disgusting. Both of us consider ourselves to be educated ("woke", if you will) and quite self sufficient. Not once have I or any member of my family expressed any wishes or expectations of receiving anything from the girl's side. I've been quite against such practices for years now, from even before I met my partner. I'm even ready to the extent of disavowing my parents if they indulge in any such activity. But what both of us have ended up realizing is that none of it matters. Society around us is accustomed to doing things in a certain way and it's not just hard, but very very hard for people to let go of such things. And mind you - it's not just generational. I know of people from my age group, school mates, colleagues, college mates, what have you, who are totally okay with such things and consider it a "norm". Some even go to the extent of supporting their parents and upfront ask the girls for it. And it's not just males, it's all over the place. Females are mostly okay with this, if not encouraging of it. They demand stuff from their parents to "help them start a new life". Maybe don't start a new life if you and your would be partner cannot afford to do so, or come to a solid understanding with your partner on where they stand on such issue?

ZephyrBlu 3y ago

> They were leaving their original family, thus reducing the number of people who'd need to be fed and sheltered, while the husband's family was taking on that duty, thus they claimed to deserve compensation Wow, that's an insane perspective. So even your own daughters were thought of as a burden?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vkou 3y ago
In many societies, women's labour was significantly undervalued compared to men's, so the more women, relative to men there are in your household, the more stress it puts on your resources. Also, if women in a society inherit nothing (Because it all goes to sons), whomever they marry is going to expect a dowry, instead. Which puts further financial stress on the family, to save up for said dowry. Which is made more difficult by point #1. Also, women often married at a younger age than men, which again, would make the dowry issue financially ruinous for a family. The longer you scrimp and save, the harder it will be for your daughter to get a good match... ---- Here's another fun bit (from ancient Greece, but plenty of other parts of the world shared the same fucked-up dynamic.) Women weren't allowed to own property. What happens when a woman is the only child, and her dad dies? She'd be forced to marry one of her close male relatives - usually an uncle, to 'keep the inheritance in the family'. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epikleros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epikleros
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  This is going to be a very western perspective, but I thought that historically women's labour has been mostly valued as a homemaker. Is that not the case in a lot of non-western societies? I'm also wondering if beauty plays a role in dowries. If a woman is beautiful does that mean she might have a lower dowry, or they don't care about beauty at all?
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    The issue is that, as is also sometimes a common mistake in the West, homemaking was seen as a part of being a woman and not as valuable labor. Yes, it's hypocritical, but most of these practices are. Yes, beauty and other circumstances would offset dowries, since of course if the husband was eager to marry her, he'd try to incentivize it.
  - vkou 3y ago
    > This is going to be a very western perspective, but I thought that historically women's labour has been mostly valued as a homemaker. Homemaker labour didn't pay well. It still doesn't, and it didn't back then. It's vital to the operation of a household, but it doesn't put food on the table, or earn money, which allow you to buy any of the things the household needs, but can't make for itself. ---- Note: Spinning was a large component of household work - which did allow women to earn money, by selling any surplus textiles they produced. There's a reason that 'spinster' became a synonym for 'old, unmarried woman'. Unfortunately, keeping your family clothed was a full-time spinning job to begin with - thousands of hours of work a year. And if you were to sell the products you produced outside the household, you wouldn't earn much with them - as a 'profession', spinning did not pay well at all.
  - roncesvalles 3y ago
    >If a woman is beautiful does that mean she might have a lower dowry Yes in practice this is what happens. There was a nasty rumor going around in my family that one of my distant uncles (a generally dapper guy) married the "ugly" daughter of a rich businessman because the dowry offered was high enough to set him up for life.
- 3y ago
dotnet00 3y ago
Yep, it was very messed up. It also went both ways, my maternal grandmother suffered decades of abuse from her son because she didn't consider her married daughters to be 'her' family. It took a plan of forcibly sneaking her out, moving her away and threatening her son with legal action to get her away. Even after that she struggled to accept being a 'burden' on her daughters.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  This is the first time I've heard of a cultural practice that I cannot fathom. Not "wow that was crazy for the time", but "I don't understand how this ever made sense". I guess it's borne out of extreme resource scarcity? The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    I can't really fathom it either, it feels somewhat like a self-reinforcing cycle which may have started from the earlier hunter-gatherer days. I'm just satisfied that in our recent generations we've quickly started to abandon a lot of these malignant ideas.
  - kelipso 3y ago
    Lol, is this some sort of act? Having to take care of aging parents and thus them being a burden on their children is a fairly common trope in western film and literature. Common worldwide.
    - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
      I actually typed out an addendum about children and elderly being burdens but adults not being, but deleted it because I thought it was extraneous since I was specifying "permanent burden regardless of what they do". Children/elderly are not permanent burdens because they grow up/die and they can sometimes do useful things. The difference here is that women are classified as burdens regardless of what they do. Cook, clean, take care of the house, your family, your husband, etc. Doesn't matter, you're still a burden. That's fucked up.
lelanthran 3y ago
> Wow, that's an insane perspective. So even your own daughters were thought of as a burden? Well, sons too, but they were a net positive because they worked and brought money home. If women were allowed to work for (non-trivial) money in traditional indian culture they'd be a net positive too.

jwond 3y ago

> the practice of having the wife burn alive on the husband's funeral pyre known as "sati" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lelanthran 3y ago

> In my family, dowry for the current generation has been passed off as "gifts intended for the couple's married life", I married twice[1] and neither times was the issue of dowry even considered[2]. Nor for anyone I know (close family, extended family, just about every indian person in South Africa). [1] Serially, not in parallel :-) [2] Nor "expensive gifts" as a euphemism for dowry.

dotnet00 3y ago
That's nice to hear. I had been pretty naive to the euphemism since it seemed to be entirely the wife's family's call (and to an extent the extended family avoided those conversations guessing that we would be opposed to it, having grown up in the West). I only managed to piece it together when it came to marriages in my immediate family. They just claimed that it was stuff that their daughter would end up needing to buy anyway and for the most part that is how it turned out, but I have also heard plenty of gossiping about how someone's daughter-in-law didn't bring X or Y thing. I still have a few years before I think I'll be ready to deal with relationships, but of course will definitely be making it clear that I have no expectations of 'gifts'.

throwaway8955 3y ago

I'm in India, looking to get married to someone I have known and loved for a while now. Our families are not too happy about it. Both of us are about 30. We are working professionals with decent finances and fair amount of independence, so despite them not being too happy about it, they're talking among themselves and setting up things. This context was important given the topic, because a topic that frequently comes up in these family discussions is that 1. the girl's parents insist that if I decide to marry their daughter, they wouldn't "give us anything". This has been said a few times to my face, to my partner, and to my parents too. 2. they've asked a few times subtly if there are any "demands" from my side of the family (most likely to bring it up as another obstacle towards peaceful proceedings). 3. they've offered that they would give some small stuff like a bed, a cupboard, etc. to us as a "blessing for our married life" despite both of us politely declining for it. It's honestly humiliating and disgusting. Both of us consider ourselves to be educated ("woke", if you will) and quite self sufficient. Not once have I or any member of my family expressed any wishes or expectations of receiving anything from the girl's side. I've been quite against such practices for years now, from even before I met my partner. I'm even ready to the extent of disavowing my parents if they indulge in any such activity. But what both of us have ended up realizing is that none of it matters. Society around us is accustomed to doing things in a certain way and it's not just hard, but very very hard for people to let go of such things. And mind you - it's not just generational. I know of people from my age group, school mates, colleagues, college mates, what have you, who are totally okay with such things and consider it a "norm". Some even go to the extent of supporting their parents and upfront ask the girls for it. And it's not just males, it's all over the place. Females are mostly okay with this, if not encouraging of it. They demand stuff from their parents to "help them start a new life". Maybe don't start a new life if you and your would be partner cannot afford to do so, or come to a solid understanding with your partner on where they stand on such issue?