The Price of Marriage: Net vs. Gross Flows and the South Asian Dowry Debate

Abstract

The rise in dowry payments in India has been taken as evidence that women increasingly are at a disadvantage on the marriage market and must pay for marriage. Moreover, high dowries, it is argued, add to the plight of parents of daughters and have thus contributed to the scarcity of women (brides). However, the logic is curious, and, this paper argues, flawed. The term “dowry” can mean different things, and it may be useful to distinguish between the assets the bride brings at the time of marriage (gross dowry) and those netted against the groom payments (net dowry). The former is what is generally meant by dowry, while the latter is a concept used mainly by economists. I show that there is no evidence of an increase in real net dowries post 1950 in the ICRISAT data set—a data set that has featured prominently in the literature. I take this to suggest that the widespread reports of dowry inflation refer to an increase in gross dowry, a development which may merely reflect greater parental affluence.

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