Why Dowries?
26 Pages Posted: 3 Apr 2003
There are 2 versions of this paper
Why Dowries?
Date Written: January 2003
Abstract
When married daughters leave their parental home and their married brothers do not, altruistic parents provide dowries for daughters and bequests for sons in order to mitigate a free riding problem between their married sons and daughters. The theory has predictions on the form of the dowry contract, the exclusion of daughters from bequests, and the decline of dowries in previously dowry giving societies. These predictions are consistent with historical evidence from ancient Near Eastern civilizations, ancient Greece, Roman Empire, thirteenth-century Byzantium, western Europe from 500 to 1500 CE, the Jews from antiquity to the Middle Ages, Arab Islam from 650 CE to modern times, China, Japan, medieval and Renaissance Tuscany, early-modern England, modern Brazil, North America, and contemporary India.
Keywords: dowry, brideprice, bequest, free riding, marriage, intergenerational transfers, Tuscany, comparative
JEL Classification: J1, NO, N3
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Terror as a Bargaining Instrument: A Case Study of Dowry Violence in Rural India
By Vijayendra Rao and Francis Bloch
-
By Seungjin Han and David Bjerk
-
Watta Satta: Bride Exchange and Women's Welfare in Rural Pakistan
By Hanan G. Jacoby and Ghazala Mansuri
-
'Arranged' Marriage, Co-Residence and Female Schooling: A Model with Evidence from India
By Indraneel Dasgupta, Pushkar Maitra, ...