31–40 of 114 posts
I don't completely understand how dowries are a thing - isn't there a massive gender imbalance in India, wouldn't dowries go the other way? Curious why this is not the case. This is awful.
Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property... If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense. In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, i…
Therefore a dowry is both compensation, and a demonstration of value (i.e. take my daughter because she has a high dowry, and is thus more desirable to marry than other girls with less dowry).
I don't completely understand how dowries are a thing - isn't there a massive gender imbalance in India, wouldn't dowries go the other way? Curious why this is not the case. This is awful.
Can someone explain how it relates to property, given that the daughters family pays the dowry. Isn't this like "I'm paying you to take my daughter off my hands". If the girl is property, shouldn't the grooms family pay the daughters family? Like an exchange for the girl?
Cultures are different and what the norms associated with even apparently identical practices (dowries in Britain vs dowries in India) could be entirely unrelated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What were the factors that had hoe-based agriculture be "women's work"? One would imagine that the increased strength and endurance of men for physical labour would have resulted in the opposite: when you have the plough and the dray horse, farming is less dependent on physical stature. The idea of which direction the money was paid being related to the perceived productive output of the woman does make sense. It's t…
My understanding is that the plow and horse, still required significant muscle to keep it on track, push it into the ground, whilst the horse was pulling forward. Additionally, rocks had to be moved (even in older fields, rocks appear, big rocks, over time).
I don't completely understand how dowries are a thing - isn't there a massive gender imbalance in India, wouldn't dowries go the other way? Curious why this is not the case. This is awful.
Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property... If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense. In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What were the factors that had hoe-based agriculture be "women's work"? One would imagine that the increased strength and endurance of men for physical labour would have resulted in the opposite: when you have the plough and the dray horse, farming is less dependent on physical stature. The idea of which direction the money was paid being related to the perceived productive output of the woman does make sense. It's t…
My understanding is that the plow and horse, still required significant muscle to keep it on track, push it into the ground, whilst the horse was pulling forward. Additionally, rocks had to be moved (even in older fields, rocks appear, big rocks, over time).
Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property... If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense. In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, i…
> in a sense were literally selling their daughters
> pay the bride's family enough money to replace the "lost labor" of having one of their workers moving away
You answered your own question.
Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Does the dowry get paid after the marriage? Why wouldnt' it be paid at the time of the marriage? Or do they keep asking for money?