The custom of bride price — a payment from the groom to the parents of the bride — is a controversial practice that some critics equate to the buying and selling of young women.
But Natalie Bau has found a surprising benefit for the girls: higher rates of female education. Since an educated girl attracts a higher bride price, parents have a strong motivation to keep their daughters in school.
Bride price, also called bridewealth, is common in many different societies. The practice goes back 3, years, predating both Christianity and Islam. The payment, which may include money, property, animals and commodities, can often equal a year or more of income.
With three colleagues, she studied the relationship between bride price and education in Zambia and Indonesia. Using data from marriages in Zambia, as well as census data, focus groups and interviews with local people who work as bride price negotiators, she found that completing primary school was associated with a 22 per cent increase in bride price; junior secondary, another 43 per cent; and secondary, an additional 27 per cent.
In Indonesia, the numbers were more dramatic: completing primary school alone brought a 66 per cent higher bride price. The researchers also looked at how the construction of thousands of new primary schools, intended to facilitate attendance by reducing travel time, affected enrolment.
In both countries they found that female enrolment rose, but only for girls from ethnic groups that practiced bride price. For other girls, there was no increase. If the practice of repayment causes women to be trapped in low-quality and unhappy marriages, then we would expect that married women who perceive there to be a requirement of repayment of the bride price upon divorce, on average, will be less happy.
Using their response, we then code a variable that equals 0 if none of it must be returned, 1 if some amount of it must be returned, and 2 if all of it must be returned. We add to our baseline estimating equation this measure, which is increasing in the extent to which the bride price must be repaid upon divorce. The estimates are reported in Columns 1—3 of Table 6. As shown, we find no evidence that the requirement to pay back the bride price upon divorce is associated with wives being less happy in their marriage.
The coefficient on the repayment variable is not statistically different from zero. In addition, the coefficients are not negative, but positive. We test for this possibility by including an interaction between the repayment variable and the value of the bride price measure. Our estimates produce a coefficient for the interaction term that is negative and significant. According to the estimated magnitudes, the effect of the repayment index, which takes on the value of 0, 1, or 2 is given by: 0.
Therefore, when the value of the bride price index is 7, 8, or 9, then a requirement to repay the bride price is associated with lower happiness of the wife. Bride price repayment customs and self-reported happiness. Amount pay back is a variable from 0 to 2, where 0 means none of the bride price has to be repaid upon divorce, 1 means some of the bride price must be repaid, and 2 means all of the bride price must be repaid.
Overall, there is no evidence that the requirement to repay the bride price upon divorce is associated with wives being stuck in less happy marriages.
However, this average effect does mask heterogeneity. To date, there is limited evidence about the correlates of bride price in the African context. One of the most robust findings, although about the causes of bride price and not its consequences, is that higher education is associated with higher bride price payments at marriage.
The reason behind this association is explored in depth by Ashraf et al. In addition, they also show that this effect of education is taken into account when parents make the decision of whether to send their daughters to school. In our setting, we have also found a strong positive relationship between education and the value of the bride price.
A number of previous studies have examined the consequences of bride price values. In a recent working paper, Mbaye and Wagner examine over 2, respondents from eight regions in Senegal and find a significant negative relationship between higher bride price and fertility. This contrasts with our finding of no robust relationship between the value of the bride price and fertility. Although we estimated a positive relationship, the point estimates were generally not statistically different from zero.
Along somewhat similar lines, the estimates from Mbaye and Wagner are only marginally significant and they are very small in magnitude.
According to their estimates, if bride price increases by per cent—a very large increase—fertility falls by only 0. Thus, taken together, our findings and the findings from Mbaye and Wagner seem to indicate that the value of the bride price appears to have no sizeable or robust relationship with fertility.
Although not the focus of their analysis, the study by Mbaye and Wagner also provides estimates of the relationship between bride price and a measure of appreciation of the wife by the husband.
They find that a higher bride price is associated with less appreciation, although the coefficients are generally not statistically different from zero.
This can be contrast to the spirit of our findings, which show a positive association between the value of the bride price and our different measures of the quality of the marriage. The previous findings that are most directly comparable to the findings in this chapter are from qualitative studies. Comparing our findings to these studies, we find significant differences. For example, our findings that higher bride price is correlated with less acceptance of domestic violence, higher marriage quality, and greater happiness for women stand in stark contrast to the conclusions from casual observation or qualitative studies.
A number of focus group and survey-based studies have shown that men and women tend to believe that the bride price results in less empowerment of women, worse marriages, and lower overall well-being.
Results of this nature have been found in Uganda Hague et al. For example, in Hague et al. There are many explanations for the differences in the findings. First, Africa is not a homogeneous unit. Thus, there could be significant heterogeneity across the large continent, which may result in differences in our relationships of interest.
A second possibility is that the actual effects of the bride price custom may be different from the perceived effects. Individuals observe the practice of the bride price, high levels of domestic violence, and low levels of female empowerment and may draw a link between them.
Whether there is a general relationship in the data when looking across a large number of individuals is an empirical question. This can be contrasted with surveys, which, though less rich in some dimensions, have the advantage that researchers are not present when the questions are answered. Instead, local enumerators ask the questions. In recent years, there have been widespread concerns that the practice may have negative effects for women.
This may cause an obstacle to divorce and result in women being trapped in unhappy marriages. Thus, in general, there has been widespread concern that the practice is detrimental to the well-being of women. In this chapter, we have used data related to these issues in an attempt to provide a better understanding of the potential effects of bride price. We did p. We found no evidence that a larger bride price payment is associated with earlier marriage or with higher fertility.
We also found that larger bride price payments are associated with better-quality marriages as measured by beliefs about the acceptability of domestic violence, the frequency of engaging in positive activities as a couple, and the self-reported happiness of the wife. We also examined the correlates of the requirement for the bride price to be paid back upon divorce.
Contrary to general concerns about this aspect of the custom, we found no evidence that this requirement is associated with women being less happy in their marriages.
In fact, we found a positive association, although the coefficient was statistically insignificant. Overall, we found that the evidence does not support the notion that the practice of bride price has detrimental effects on the well-being of married women. Perhaps surprisingly, in general, a higher bride price tends to be associated with good outcomes. The one exception is that the presence of a high bride price and the requirement for the bride price to be paid back upon divorce does appear to be associated with less happiness on the part of the wife.
We end by reminding the reader about an important caveat. Despite our attempts to control for potentially omitted factors, it is very possible that they still influence the estimates and impeded our ability to interpret them as causal.
However, we do feel that the estimates we report here lead one to pause and recognize the need for greater research to understand the causal effects of the custom, particularly given the calls to abolish the practice in many countries within Africa. Adams, B. Mburugu Journal of Comparative Family Studies , 25 2 : — Anderson, S. Journal of Economic Perspectives , 21 4 : — Bau, N. Nunn, and A. Voena Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Biryabarema, E. Reuters Africa, 6 August.
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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corno, L. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Hildebrandt, and A. Dery, I. International Journal of Development Sustainability , 4 3 : — Dudley, O.
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Mirembe, A. Ekstrom, G. Kyomuhendo, and A. Johansson African Health Sciences , 5 4 : —3. Kelly, A. The Guardian. Lowes, S. Nunn Bride-price is an important variable that is particularly useful for charting social change, broad patterns of cultural evolution, the economics of inheritance, and the status of women.
Studies of bride-price also shed light on strategies for bargaining and negotiation because these are important dynamics in setting the level of bride-price payment that in turn is dependent on local economic conditions, such as the availability of land.
Because the transfer of wealth has implications for status and power, the study of the mechanisms and variables associated with bride-price is an important topic of study for anthropologists, demographers, and social historians. Evolutionary ecological studies have also examined bride-price because of the significance of women's labor and reproductive value to evolutionary hypotheses. In this area of study, researchers make assumptions about maximizing the material, social, or political value of the exchange.
Borgerhoff Mulder, M. Cronk, L. Ensminger, J. Goody, J.
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