Very interesting indeed, Pat!  Thanks so much.

It may be worth noting that the practice of paying a bride-price would 
have been thoroughly familiar to many-- probably most-- of the Africans 
brought to early Virginia.  Throughout sub-Saharan Africa for 
centuries, it's been normative in most societies to have the 
prospective husband pay his wife's family a price (normally in goods, 
not money) for marrying her.

At first blush this seems shockingly sexist, but in fact it is a frank 
acknowledgment of the economic importance of the woman and the 
compensation due to her family for losing her in that role.   It also 
signalled to the wife's family the husband's worth as a household head 
and economic provider.  The practice has been losing ground on the 
continent in recent decades, but remains important in many ethnic 
groups.

So I think we can be fairly certain that the English practice of the 
dowry struck African-born Virginians as bizarre.  What was wrong with 
these white people that they paid husbands to take someone as valuable 
as a healthy daughter off their hands???

And then there was the matter of wives.  In Virginia, even wealthy men 
had only one wife!   (Concubines were another matter, but neither in 
Africa nor in America were concubines the same as wives, of course.)  
That, too, must have struck Africans-- nearly all of whose natal 
societies held the polygynous household to be the marital ideal, even 
if poorer men often failed to afford more than one wife-- as truly 
bizarre.

Oh, to have heard some of the late-night conversations around the fire 
in the quarters. . . !

--Jurretta


On Feb 28, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Patricia Watkinson wrote:
>
>
> It should be noted that the "giving (by the groom) and receiving (by 
> the
> bride) of a ring" predated the Christian, not to say Anglican, wedding
> service, which is why it took place outside the church for a long time.
> But just to make things interesting, we note that any "independence" in
> the marriage process that women gained during the Medieval period was
> cancelled by the re-imposition of classic Roman law during the
> Renaissance. Thus, after the 12th century when Gratian published the
> _Decretum_ and through the Renaissance, the concept of "Roman Dowry," 
> in
> which the bride's family often bypassed the groom and gave the dowry
> straight to the groom's family, was canon law in Italy.
>
> I don't know where this goes, exactly, but it's interesting.
>
> Pat
>

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