Money and Marriage : The Practice of Dowry and Brideprice in Rural India
Money and Marriage : The Practice of Dowry and Brideprice in Rural India
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金钱与婚姻:印度农村嫁妆和彩礼的实践
DOI：
10.1086/685712
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发表时间：
2010
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
A. R. Chowdhury
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. R. Chowdhury
印度婚姻的一个重要特点是在结婚时有关家庭之间的资金转移。这些转移可以是双向的--从新娘家到新郎家，称为嫁妆，反之亦然，称为聘礼。虽然以前的研究分别侧重于嫁妆和聘礼，但联合决定的可能性被忽视了。在本文中，我分析了嫁妆和彩礼作为相互依存的机构，使用回顾性数据，从农村经济和人口调查1998年，全国代表性的调查印度农村。我使用逻辑，普通最小二乘法和看似无关的回归模型，以提供一个完整的图片的流行，扩散和通货膨胀的嫁妆和新娘在印度从1975年至1999年，同时确定影响家庭之间的经济交流的大小的因素。关键发现是，随着时间的推移，嫁妆的做法在国家和地区层面都有所扩大。然而，与普遍看法和一些研究结果相反，嫁妆和聘礼的真实的价值随着时间的推移而下降。一般来说，新郎和新娘的教育和年龄、新郎父母的土地所有权、婚姻迁移的距离以及适婚年龄的男女比例是影响嫁妆数额的重要因素。一个非常有趣的发现是，新娘的教育和嫁妆之间的正相关，而预期相反。其原因是，对于受过教育的新娘来说，嫁妆更多的是作为一种遗赠，而不是作为吸引更好新郎的代价。本文的研究结果扩大了我们对印度婚姻交易的动态和关键决定因素的了解，有助于更广泛地了解一个重要的社会制度，这个制度往往是侵犯基本人权的原因。* 我感谢丹尼斯·P·霍根、大卫·P·林德斯特罗姆、南希·卢克和阿里·E·普罗蒂克提出的有益建议和讨论。特别感谢Andrew D Foster提供数据。但是，我对任何剩余的错误负责。
One important aspect characterizing marriages in India is the financial transfer made at the time of marriage between families involved. These transfers can go in both directions – from the bride’s family to the groom’s, known as dowry, and vice versa, known as brideprice. While previous research has focused on dowry and brideprice separately, the possibility of a joint determination has been ignored. In this paper, I analyze dowry and brideprice as interdependent institutions, using retrospective data from the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey 1998, a nationally representative survey of rural India. I use logistic, ordinary least square and seemingly unrelated regression models to provide a complete picture of the prevalence, diffusion and inflation of dowry and brideprice in India from 1975 to 1999, while determining the factors affecting the size of economic exchanges between families. The key finding is that the practice of dowry has expanded over time at both the country and the regional levels. However, contrary to popular belief and some research findings, the real value of dowry and brideprice has declined over time. Education and age of bride and groom, groom’s parental landholding, distance of marriage migration and the ratio of female to male at marriageable age are, in general, the important factors affecting the size of dowry. One very interesting finding is the positive association between bride’s education and dowry when the opposite is expected. The explanation is that for an educated bride, dowry is paid more as a bequest than as a price to attract better grooms. Findings in this paper expand our knowledge of the dynamics and key determinants of marriage transactions in India, contributing to the broader agenda of improving our understanding of an important social institution that is too often responsible for violating basic human rights. * I thank Dennis P Hogan, David P Lindstrom, Nancy Luke and Ali E Protik for helpful suggestions and discussions. Special thanks to Andrew D Foster for providing the data. However, I am responsible for any remaining errors.