Paper short abstract:

Marriage payment from the family of brides to bridegrooms is a severe gender related problem in contemporary India. This paper discusses people's own explanations for the shift from "women's wealth" to "women's marriage fee" in Kerala over the past 70 years.

Paper long abstract:

Whether paid to the bride, the groom, or their relatives, marriage payments and their rationale have differed over the past century among various communities in Travancore and Malabar. While the nature have changed, dowries continue to be paid and received in Kerala. Even more conspicuous, however, is their appearance among groups who never had this practice. By examining a seventy-year historical record and focusing on the life stories and explanations of the people involved, a complex picture of dowry emerges. We find elements of historical traditions, class, gender, and education issues at work in how people sanction the behaviours that constitute "modern" dowry. The political economy and cultural context of the surrounding society also play a strong role in the sometimes contradictory and irrational reasons people give to justify their practices.

This paper is based on archival materials, fieldwork, and interviews conducted in Kerala from 1997 to 2010. A preliminary survey of the varying hypotheses for marriage payments over the years is followed by an examination of secondary and primary historical sources, an analysis of interviews addressing the nature and rationale of dowry, and some concluding remarks on how one might account for the shift from "women's wealth" to "women's marriage fee".