Dowry

In Christian culture, the dowry was explained by the fact that the husband would support his wife. Over time, the dowry began to play the role of property attraction of potential suitors. Of particular interest in the dowry were the parents of the groom, to whom the future wife of their son was to move. In the Middle Ages , in connection with the earlier age of marriage (14-16 years), in more or less wealthy families, dowry began to be collected literally immediately after the birth of the girl. If she died ( infant mortality was high), he was passed on to other girls. First of all, the girl’s mother was collecting dowry. Later, the bride herself began to be involved in the collection process. The standard dowry set included household items, primarily hand-made feather-beds, pillows, handmade pillowcases, sheets, blankets, rugs, curtains, a variety of dishes, crystal, silverware, as well as jewelry, gold, etc. usually stored in one or more chests and caskets, which were of practical and artistic value and which the bride also took with her. Later, significant amounts of money and securities began to be added to them (this was especially true for the daughters of bankers and financiers of modern times). ^{[1] The} dowry was the inalienable property of a woman and was retained in case of divorce.

In the Middle Ages, as in modern times, the collection of dowry had its own characteristics, depending on the culture of each country. In Greece , until the middle of the 20th century, homeless women did not actually have a chance to marry even a completely ruined person.

In India, many poor people kill many female babies because of the inability or unwillingness to collect a dowry for a girl, which has already led to the development of sexual imbalance in this country ^{[2] [3] [4]} . In addition, cases of extortion by a mother-in-law are widespread in India: if a daughter-in-law refuses to provide the required amount of money or valuables, she is starved, beaten, and sometimes killed. Moreover, since 1961, it has been officially forbidden in India to demand a dowry from the bride, and in 1983 a law was passed according to which extortion of a dowry is qualified as a serious crime. ^{[5] [6]} .

• Kalym - ransom for the bride, the amount that the groom’s parents handed to the bride’s parents in exchange for a dowry.

• Dowry // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.