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Dowry is a payment of cash or gifts from the bride's family to the bridegroom's family upon arranged marriage. It may include cash, jewelry, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils, car and other household items that help the newlyweds set up their home. In India, the dowry puts great financial strain on the bride's family.
Bride dowry is equivalent to dowry paid to the groom in some cultures, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. Some cultures may practice both simultaneously. Many cultures practiced bride dowry prior to existing records.
The payment of dowry has long been prohibited under specific Indian laws including the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 approved by the Parliament of India and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498A [7] of the Indian Penal Code. The Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 defines dowry: "Dowry means any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given ...
Upon completion of these negotiations, a wedding date is set, with the elders having provided an acceptable percentage of the full dowry. The rest of the dowry is expected later. No request is made for it, but the young man is expected to remember to finish his payment and failure to do so spells dishonor for that family.
The terms "dowry" and "bride price" are sometimes incorrectly used to translate mahr, but mahr differs from dowries in many other cultures. A dowry traditionally refers to money or possessions a woman brings forth to the marriage, usually provided by her parents or family; bride price refers to money or property paid by the groom or his family ...
A marriage settlement was a means of ensuring the proper use of a dowry provided by a bride's father to be used for his daughter's financial support throughout her married life and into her widowhood, and also a means by which the bride's father was able to obtain from the bridegroom's father a financial commitment to the intended marriage and to the children resulting therefrom.
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Bride service has traditionally been portrayed in the anthropological literature as the service rendered by the bridegroom to a bride's family as a bride price or part of one (see dowry). Bride service and bride wealth models frame anthropological discussions of kinship in many regions of the world.