4 ms·

> 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

> 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.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Inheritance rights play into this a lot. A flip side of Greece I think is Spain where a married women can inherit property in her own name. And dispose of it in her will. In those societies perhaps a dowry is really more the daughters share of the families wealth.
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.

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.
Gibbon1 3y ago
Inheritance rights play into this a lot. A flip side of Greece I think is Spain where a married women can inherit property in her own name. And dispose of it in her will. In those societies perhaps a dowry is really more the daughters share of the families wealth.

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.