Dowry in India and bride price in Thailand

Abstract

This paper makes a modest attempt to provide a comprehensive description of the institution of marriage transaction in India and Thailand. In most societies and their marriage institutions, an important aspect characterizing marriage is the financial transfer. This transfer is usually made at the time of marriage between families involved. It can be in two forms: transfer from the bride’s family to the groom’s known as dowry as practiced widely in India or from the groom’s family to the bride’s known as bride price as practiced in Thailand at the time of marriage. The present paper uses mostly secondary source of data by reviewing the literature available from books, journals and electronic sources. Findings in this paper may help to bridge the gap in the available knowledge and literature about the origin, forms, changes and factors of the prevalence of the institutions of dowry in India and bride price in Thailand, to highlight positive and negative effects from its analysis, thereby contributing to the policy makers to understanding this social institution which may create social problems or be beneficial to the bride, family or to the society at large.