Bride wealth in other cultures is mainly the responsibility of the man to provide a portion of his wealth and or his patrilineal wealth as a contribution to his future wife’s family for their loss of a working member of the tribe (Nowak & Laird, 2010). In correlation to stability of marriage this is a test of the man’s financial status to see if he can provide the requested gift of wealth to the family. If so, then this means he is stable enough to give and still have wealth left to take care of his new wife and their family. It is almost like collecting an inheritance upfront for the woman and kid’s value to the paternal family.
The impact marriage on the status of women in pastoral societies
As I understand the relationship, they value women as property even though the anthroploigical term is not brideprice, which means the wife is valued at just that, property (Nowak & Laird, 2010). However, from my etic perspective the woman is a unit of labor, taken away from labor, married off to do more labor, while the family gets compensated for the loss of her labor (i.e slave). Her status is said to be equal to those of her children, or less if the child is a male. I understand that the man’s duties are to take care of the household, leaving the wife to take care of the minor things, but sometimes those duties considered minor can have a major impact on the household if left undone (Nowak & Laird, Case Study: Social Organization, 2010). Therefore her role as wife should have equal value to his role as husband especially if both of their contributions make up the worth of their families wealth.
From an emic perspective the man is asking for the woman’s hand in marriage so that he may start his own lineage. The process begins by offering gifts of promise to the family he is vowing to them that he and his family welcomes them into their family and are willing to share the wealth of their patrilineal blood line with them as family. A man is not of value if he has not acquired and managed his wealth well enough to build from it and share the overflow. He must show sure signs of quality by learning from his father’s father the lessons of responsibility as a family man.
