Dowry - who gives what to whom?

[sethdallob]

Main Entry: dow·ry
Pronunciation: 'dau(-&)-rE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural dowries
Etymology: Middle English dowarie, from Anglo-French, irregular from Medieval Latin dotarium, from Latin dot-, dos gift, marriage portion – more at DATE
Date: 14th century
1 archaic : DOWER 1
2 : the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage
3 : a gift of money or property by a man to or for his bride
4 : a natural talent

2 and 3 are opposites. What’s the deal?

[andygirl]

It depended on the culture- both instances were called doweries.

[MEBuckner]

A dowry is “the property that a wife or a wife’s family give to her husband upon marriage.” Often the dowry would have to be restored to the wife’s family in the event of divorce. Terms for property or payments going the other way include bridewealth or bride price, “the payment made by the groom or his kin to the kin of the wife in order to ratify a marriage.” According to the article on dowry

In many premodern societies the dowry serves as a reciprocal gesture by the bride’s family to the groom’s kin for the expenses incurred by the latter in payment of the bride-price (see bridewealth). These exchanges are not purely economic; they serve to ratify the marriage and consolidate friendship between the two families.

So gifts might go both ways. And obviously “dowry” is sometimes used more generally for both cusoms. There’s also dower, “The part or interest of a deceased man’s real estate allotted by law to his widow for her lifetime.” This might well have been her dowry, controlled by her husband (in patriarchal societies) during his lifetime, but still in some sense “hers”, and therefore guaranteed not to go to his kin after he dies and she is left a widow.