Marriage Payments Research Articles

Does opening up change customs? Evidence from trade liberalization and marriage payments in China

AbstractThere is widespread concern about whether opening up changes cultural customs. However, empirical evidence remains limited. In this paper, we provide new evidence on this issue by examining the impact of trade liberalization on marriage payment customs in China. We first provide a conceptual framework based on a labor market perspective to illustrate how trade liberalization has driven changes in marriage payment customs. Then, using China's World Trade Organization accession as a quasi‐natural experiment, this paper uses the difference‐in‐differences strategy and China's large‐scale household survey data to conduct an empirical study. Our results suggest that trade liberalization has reduced marriage payments in China, especially the bride price but not the dowry. Evidence from industry and census surveys suggests that the declining earning ability of marriageable men and the increasing relative economic status of women have driven down the bride price from the supply and demand sides, respectively. We also find that the impact of trade liberalization has been concentrated on southern and rural households. In addition to the decline in the bride price, the bad practice of child marriage in China has also been alleviated as a result.

Marriage payments and wives’ welfare: All you need is love

Bride price is essential to marriage in West Africa, and its impact on wives’ well-being in their marital life is a matter of debate. According to our data from Senegal, transfers to the bride’s family characterize approximately 85% of marriages. Furthermore, although this is largely ignored in the literature, these marriages are also characterized by the simultaneous existence of other marriage payments, which flow in different directions between the stakeholders. This paper studies the relationship between these multiple marriage payments and the well-being of the wife in her household. We use a unique survey that asks separate questions about the different types of marriage payments. We highlight the strength of the link between what is given to the bride herself and her welfare, as opposed to the looseness of the relation between this welfare and what is given to her family.

Hanlam: Marriage payment in the 21st Century: A Case Study from Wokha Town

Marriage is one of the oldest social institutions in human society. During this occasion, some marriage payments are made in the form of bride price, dower, and dowry. In the Lotha community, a marriage payment, "Hanlam" is practiced. Hanlam is different from any of the marriage payments mentioned above. Thus the study's main objective is to find out the relevance of the Hanlam practiced among the Lotha community and its impact on women's rights. The paper is descriptive, where the respondents were selected based on purposive sampling. Altogether 50 couples from Wokha town were interviewed. The study found that Hanlam still holds relevance among the Lotha couples as it indirectly benefits the newly married couple not only in terms of monetary help but through hanlam the couples are recognised and accepted by their kin, especially the groom is regarded as one of the kin members by the brides' paternal kins. Furthermore, it is the only traditional practice left in Lotha marriage ceremony. Finally, the continuation of the practice of Hanlam has not led to the curtailment of women's rights.

A question of equity? The ‘value’ of male and female virginity in late 18th and early 19th century Athens

ABSTRACT This article explores marriage payments in late Ottoman Greece through the early years of the independent Greek state and, in particular, the idea of virginity and its value in both men and women. The main focus of the article is the payment known as egenliki, paid by the bride who is entering a second marriage to a groom who has not been previously married. Engenliki is examined in conjunction with the rarer payment of a groom to his bride for her virginity. Through the examination of over 900 surviving dowry contracts from Athens and following the historical trajectory of such payments from the Roman Law to Ottoman Greece, this article argues that such rare payments were symbolic in nature meant to redress what was perceived as an inequality in marriage and possibly to forestall societal disapproval of marriages where only one of the members had been previously married.

Paying for the Selected Son Sex Imbalance and Marriage Payments in China

Paying for the Selected Son Sex Imbalance and Marriage Payments in China

Marriage Egyptian Style: The Impact of International Migration on Marriage Payments

Marriage Egyptian Style: The Impact of International Migration on Marriage Payments

Conus armshells in British New Guinea: the effects of economic change on cross-cultural engagement

In late nineteenth century British New Guinea armshells made from conus shells were an essential element of ceremonial exchange among communities resident along the southern coast and in the islands of the Massim region. A comparative analysis of the size and nature of decoration on conus armshells within the Official and Personal collections assembled by Sir William MacGregor, Administrator and Lieutenant Governor (1888–1898) illustrates the effects of economic change on the availability of objects used to broker cross-cultural exchanges. The abundance of trade goods available to local communities combined with high rates of inflation in the number of armshells required for marriage payments in the region around Port Moresby led to a severe shortage of these valuables. In the Trobriand Islands, which were experiencing an economic boom due to the high demand for pearls by western traders, large valuable objects used in the Kula ceremonial exchange system were also rarely given to outsiders. This study illustrates the impact of varying social and economic conditions on local decisions about social engagements involving cultural valuables.

Marriage as a Connector: A Conversation about Spatial and Temporal Scales of Partnership and Self-accomplishment in Kenya and Uganda

East African families are heterogeneous institutions, fluid and in transformation. The region is home to a range of competing and sometimes contradictory value systems, with a variety of ethics, codes and practices regarding such matters as marriage, divorce and bridewealth. The intertwining of multiple value systems, together with demographic shifts, intermarriages, dynamics of internal and international migration and new professional avenues have a fundamental bearing on expanding the array of family configurations.The spread of informal unions can in part be understood as a response to economic changes initiated by the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, and a limited ability to meet the social prerequisites of legitimate family-making, like wedding and marriage costs and the payment of bridewealth, i.e. the transfer of wealth from the groom’s to the bride’s kin. However, individuals and couples of all generations actively re-imagine the future of marriage beyond bridewealth, increasingly questioning the meaning, role and validity of marriage payments, wedding requirements and separations.Changing family constellations and new interpretations of non conventional family-making, where marriage is not officially sanctioned, cohabitation is not an option, or patrilinear ties are less important than matrilateral, may pave alternative pathways for achieving upward social mobility, especially in the context of mobility and migration through kinship networks. In this chapter we wish to address the diversity of marriage in East Africa from a local and gendered perspective. After a quantitative overview on marriage in Kenya and Uganda, we will be focusing on marriage ceremonies, the meaning of divorce for social status and self-accomplishment and finally, the role of mobility in making and unmaking marriage.

Saving for dowry: Evidence from rural India

The ancient custom of dowry, i.e., bride-to-groom marriage payments, remains ubiquitous in many contemporary societies. Using data from 1986–2007, this paper examines whether dowry impacts intertemporal resource allocation and other household decisions in rural India. Utilizing variation in firstborn gender and dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of higher dowry payments at the time of a daughter’s marriage leads parents to save more in advance. The higher savings are primarily financed through increased paternal labor supply. This implies that people are farsighted; they work and save more today with payoff in the distant future.

Parents’ assets and child marriage: Are mother’s assets more protective than father’s assets?

Abstract Child marriage places girls at an increased risk for dropping out of school early, sexually transmitted infections, teenage childbirth, and accompanying childbirth complications, including maternal mortality. The determinants of child marriage are not clearly understood, which hinders efforts to mount effective interventions. This study examined the link between economic resources and child marriage by investigating whether maternal and paternal asset ownership were longitudinally associated with daughters’ child marriage in Ethiopia. Drawing upon household bargaining theory, it was hypothesized that maternal assets would be more protective of daughters’ child marriage than paternal assets. Data for 4293 girls from the nationally representative Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey, fielded in 2011 and 2014, were employed. Logistic regression and instrumental variable analyses were used to examine the relationship between transition into child marriage during the study period and maternal and paternal assets, controlling for child-, family-, and community-level characteristics. Results show that a one standard deviation increase in mother’s assets was associated with 37–53% lower odds of daughter’s child marriage whereas a one standard deviation increase in paternal asset holdings was associated with 0–37% higher odds of daughter’s child marriage. Effects were strongest in regions where the dominant mode of marriage payments is bride price. These results suggest that the link between economic resources and child marriage depends on the gender of the parent who owns the resources. This study also highlights the interconnectedness of two targets of the gender equality Sustainable Development Goal—improvement of women’s ownership of assets and the elimination of child marriage—and suggests that the realization of one gender equality target could have implications for other targets.

Marriage and Money Entangled: Commodification, Agency, and Economic Analysis in Chinese Marriage Payment Lawsuits

Author(s): Zhang, Yiran | Abstract: Lawsuits about groom-to-bride marriage payments are arriving in Chinese courts, challenging traditional ideas about marriage formation. Through the lens of case files, I examine the dissolution of marriages (or quasimarital relationships) formed by marriage payment agreements and analyze the anticommodification views expressed by feminists and legal scholars. In these cases, judges wrestle with two competing considerations: their own antimarriage payment and pro-groom views on one hand and the litigants’ economic conception of marriage on the other. The former urges judges to rule for the grooms, and the latter for the brides. In balancing these two considerations, judges generally order a partial or full repayment of the payment when the relationship dissolves. I also examine feminist concerns of voluntariness and fairness in the commodification of sexuality. The current theoretical and judicial frameworks do not account for the divergent power dynamics in individual cases; as a result, the case rulings do not respond appropriately to brides and grooms with differing degrees of agency. These blind spots may have unintended consequences, including inflating prices and reinforcing gender-based asymmetries. In this Article, I argue that judges should rely on economic analysis rather than moral judgment to better account for the actual dynamics of marriage payment arrangements. Framing my analysis is a transactional conception of marriage and an economic approach to family, both of which have the potential to further our understanding of marriage and to advance gender equality.

Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments

We study how aggregate economic conditions affect the timing of marriage, and particularly child marriage, in Sub‐Saharan Africa and in India. In both regions, substantial monetary or in‐kind transfers occur with marriage: bride price across Sub‐Saharan Africa and dowry in India. In a simple equilibrium model of the marriage market in which parents choose when their children marry, income shocks affect the age of marriage because marriage payments are a source of consumption smoothing, particularly for a woman's family. As predicted by our model, we show that droughts, which reduce annual crop yields by 10 to 15% and aggregate income by 4 to 5%, have opposite effects on the marriage behavior of a sample of 400,000 women in the two regions: in Sub‐Saharan Africa they increase the annual hazard into child marriage by 3%, while in India droughts reduce such a hazard by 4%. Changes in the age of marriage due to droughts are associated with changes in fertility, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa, and with declines in observed marriage payments. Our results indicate that the age of marriage responds to short‐term changes in aggregate economic conditions and that marriage payments determine the sign of this response. This suggests that, in order to design successful policies to combat child marriage and improve investments in daughters' human capital, it is crucial to understand the economic role of marriage market institutions.

Household Determinants of Teen Marriage: Sister Effects Across Four Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

This article investigates the household determinants of teen marriage in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam using data from the international Young Lives study tracking a cohort of children from the ages of 8-19 over a 15-year period. First, we offer a descriptive and comparative overview of the prevalence of teen marriage among girls in geographically selected areas of the four countries, together with their sociodemographic determinants. Second, we place a specific focus on the role of gender and sibling sex-composition in shaping the probability of getting married by age 19. Drawing on the significant cross-country heterogeneity in household context, direction of marriage payments, and prevalence of arranged marriage, we test hypotheses relating to the availability of economic resources within the household and cultural norms surrounding the order and timing of marriage. We show that in Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam, presence and number of older sisters in the household are associated with a 30-50percent lower likelihood of teen marriage, while the association is null in Peru. Also, we show that having a girl as next-youngest sibling does not significantly affect girls' likelihood of experiencing teen marriage, except in Ethiopia. Our results combined support theories of family-level resource constraints over sibling rivalry hypotheses. Our findings enrich and complement existing evidence on the role of sibling sex-composition on adolescent outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

Legitimasi Berlapis dan Negosiasi Dinamis pada Pembayaran Perkawinan Perspektif Pluralisme Hukum

<p>This article is based on an ethnographic study that uses participatory observation of eight marriage payment negotiations in the city of Mataram, West Nusatenggara. It argues that the marriage payment in the Muslim tradition of Sasak in the city of Mataram is based on strong legal pluralism or a variety of equally strong laws in which no single legal system dominates and is subordinated to each other. Furthermore, this research sheds light on extending meaning of legal pluralism in which it may include dialogue between the same legal system eg between different customary laws. This strong model of legal pluralism is seen in two ways. First, the layered legitimacy of Sasak marriage by using many models of marriage payments, namely religious payment in the form of mahr for marriage validity, local payment in the form of pisuke and ajikrama for social appropriateness, and state payment in the form of administrative costs for formal legality. Second, the dynamic negotiation between customary law holders concerning the marriage payment when inter-ethnicity marriage occurs (exogamy), where different traditions can absorb each other. The argument at the same time debates the view that has placed the three legal systems: Islam, adat (customs), and the state as opposed and subordinate to each other.</p>

In Exchange for Nothing: Marriage Payments and Old-Age Support in China

Given the large value of marriage payments in China, parental support for children's marriage payments is common, which may serve as a strategy of parents to assure their old-age support. In this paper, I investigate whether parents offer marriage payments to children in exchange for the provision of old-age support from children in the later period. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), I first analyze the provision of marriage payments in the context of intra-household allocation. Increasing maternal resources makes children, especially daughters, more likely to receive marriage payments from parents; whereas changes in paternal resources do not matter for the likelihood of offering marriage payments. Compared to their non-recipient siblings, children who used to receive marriage payments do not provide parents with more financial support, which is a strong rejection of the exchange motive for offering marriage payments to children. However, parents do benefit from human capital investment in their children, implying that to receive old-age support from children, parents should invest in the human capital of their children in their early years instead of non-human capital in their adulthood.

When Men Touch Women without License: Interrogating the Reasons for Women's Entry into Consensual Unions in Urban Accra, Ghana

The last few decades have seen a significant increase in the incidences of consensual unions, particularly in the urban spaces of African societies. The trend has heightened scholars' interest in the circumstances responsible for the practice. Several studies have discussed consensual unions at the macro level and pointed to structural factors like modernization, urbanization, and changes in marriage payments. Drawing on Randall Collins's (2004) Theory of Situations, this paper employs a micro-level analysis of the causes of consensual unions. Data is from in-depth interviews conducted with persons in consensual unions in Accra, Ghana. The paper focuses on the experiences of women and argues that aside from the more structural issues, the factors that influence entry into what I describe as consensual unions can be understood from the immediate circumstances that confront an individual at a specific point in time. For the purposes of this paper I define a consensual union as one in which a man and woman, living together or not, conduct themselves as a married couple when they have either not begun or completed the customary marriage rites and ceremonies required to be recognized as a married couple.

Explaining Marriage Payments

AbstractThe high amount of mahr paid by the groom to the bride, among other marriage payments, constitutes a real burden for young Omanis today. This article sheds light on the main factors and motives that determine the amount of the mahr. Paradoxically, new consumerist desires, more highly educated women, and “love marriages” seem to coincide inversely with rising marriage payments. Modernization variables, such as women’s education and exogamous marriages, are not decreasing the mahr as predicted by theories of modernization, nor is institutional regulation effectively decreasing the amount. Beyond its economic aspects, mahr needs to be situated in its social, political, and cultural dimensions to better understand the complexity and variability of this institution. This article answers fundamental questions about how the mahr amount is fixed and negotiated between families in Oman.The study was carried out in Oman in 2016. Thirty-nine semi-structured interviews were conducted in different areas of the country in order to give firsthand information on the evolution, motives, perceptions, experiences, attitudes, and mechanisms related to matrimonial decision-making and familial strategies during the mahr bargaining. In addition to ethnographic research, a general online survey was conducted to provide statistical data on the main economic and non-economic factors that determine the mahr amount.

An economic model of early marriage

To explain female adolescent marriage patterns around the world, we develop a marriage market model with asymmetric information about prospective marriage partners, and a noisy signal about the bride’s quality during an engagement. In equilibrium, there is a negative relationship between the age and perceived quality of women on the marriage market and, consistent with available evidence, older brides make higher net marriage payments. The model also implies path dependence in the evolution of adolescent marriage practices over time and persistent effects on marriage practices from transitory shocks. Model simulations show interventions which increase the opportunity cost of early marriage attenuates the association between bride quality and age, triggering a virtuous cycle of marriage postponement.

Population dynamics and marriage payments: an analysis of the long run equilibrium in India

Abstract Why do scarce Indian women pay dowry to secure grooms even as the sex-ratio of offspring is manipulated by parents? We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model of demographic and marriage market outcomes with endogenous gender preference. We find, that under a calibration of parameters suggested by Indian marriage market indicators, any long run steady state equilibrium must have both dowry and a masculine sex ratio. The key assumption that generates this result is the asymmetric marital preferences of men and women regarding own and spouse’s ideal age at marriage.

MARRIAGE PAYMENTS AND WOMEN'S BARGAINING POWER IN RURAL BANGLADESH

Abstract:This study examines the postmarriage bargaining power of women—specifically, their decision-making power with regard to fertility—vis-à-vis imbalances in matching in the marriage market. Applying a multinomial logit model to data on rural Bangladesh for 1998/99, the study gauges women's relative empowerment: (i) at the time of marriage (measured by the bride price as a share of total marriage payments) and (ii) postmarriage (measured by women's use of the contraceptive pill). The empirical findings reveal that a higher bride price (as a share of total household marriage payments) has three main outcomes: it increases the predicted probability of women (i) using the contraceptive pill, (ii) spacing births further apart, and (iii) choosing to have fewer children.