Definitions
Dowry is an asset provided by a father or guardian to a daughter during her marriage; on the other hand, bride price is an amount of money or property or an asset provided by the family of the groom to the family of the bride during the marriage.
The tradition of dower (meher) is very different from dowry or bride price – in meher, a husband is supposed to provide an amount of money or asset to a wife, which is a token of respect as well as social security during the dissolution of marriage (Singh 2010).
Introduction
A Global Perspective of the Gender Distribution of Wealth
Dowry was considered a social security to women during a post-marriage crisis such as alienation by a husband or another marital conflict (Goody 1976). Similarly, the bride price is still prevalent in many indigenous cultures (Anderson et al. 2018). However, in Muslim marriages, dowry is also in practice along with meher, whereas meher is just a social formality. Dowry custom is prevalent across the...
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Kumar, R. (2020). Dowry System: Unequalizing Gender Equality. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_21-1
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