Marriage sure is simpler nowadays than in the world depicted in Jane Austen’s novels (and the public TV versions of them). But the relative economic simplicity of marriage in contemporary America contrasts with complexities still faced by many people in other countries. As in Austen’s day, payments tied to marriage play a key role in the income and wealth of both parents and children for many people throughout the world.
Austen was a masterful observer of social life. All of her novels center on the conflicting forces of romantic love and financial expedience in British matrimony 200 years ago. Her heroines’ paths to marital bliss require hurdling obstacles created by the large payments of money between families common to marriage for upper- and middle-class Britons of her era.
Austen’s heroines needed to find a husband wealthy enough to support them in the style to which they were accustomed and to buttress their own parent’s finances. But the higher their social class, the more important it was that their prospective partner come from old wealth. Marrying a rich businessman would cause a loss of social rank.
Impecunious parents of a socially desirable young man similarly might expect that his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy family would bail out their own finances. A social faux pas or moment of lust by either partner might bring financial doom to someone.
Marriage payments remain important in many societies. They are one topic on which economists collaborate with scholars from other social sciences such as anthropology, sociology and history.
Marriage payments from the bride’s family to the groom’s generally are termed “dowry” by scholars. Payments from the groom’s to bride’s constitute “bride-price.” But scholars can make further classifications based on the degree to which the bride or groom retains some control over the payment made or if it is an unrestricted transfer to their parents. So one also reads of “dower” and “groom-price.”
Such marriage payments remain important in much of Africa and Asia. Indeed, in some nations like India, the institution of dowry that once was most visible in the highest social classes is gaining prominence in a rapidly growing middle class. In rural Africa, bride-price payments often dwarf any other financial transaction households make.
These payments serve myriad social purposes. They cement alliances between families or clans in tribal societies. They fortified business relationships of merchant families in medieval Europe and the Ottoman Empire. They can constitute an intergenerational transfer of assets. Some scholars even see such payments deterring divorce or motivating sexual fidelity.
Bride-price predominates in agricultural societies like sub-Saharan Africa where most farming involves human labor. Where animal traction pulling plows is more common, so is dowry.
Who knew Jane Austen was an entrée to so much economics?
© 2008 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.