bride price

See also: brideprice and bride-price

English

Alternative forms

Noun

bride price (plural bride prices)

  1. A sum of money or other valuables paid by a bridegroom or on his behalf to the family of the bride, in some cultures.
    • 1937, Grace Crowfoot, “Custom and Folk Tale in Palestine. The Dowry or Bride Price,”, in Folklore, volume 48, number 1, page 31:
      It is well known in Artas as in other villages exactly what the bride price should customarily be—so much for a cousin bride, so much more for a village bride, more still for a stranger.
    • 2017 January 4, Liu Zhen, “Don’t pay over 60,000 yuan for a bride, say Chinese officials”, in South China Morning Post‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 January 2017, China‎:
      Taiqian county in Henan province has issued guidelines saying grooms should pay no more than 60,000 yuan (HK$67,000) as a “bride price”, the Chinese tradition that a male partner offers money to his fiancée’s family to secure their marriage.
    • 2018 November, Lucy Moore, “Founding Mothers”, in Literary Review:
      Their fares across the Atlantic were paid on the understanding that when they married, their Virginian husbands would pay a bride price for them of 150 pounds of tobacco, then worth about £22 (perhaps seven years’ salary for a domestic maid).

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