bride price

• bride-price, brideprice

bride price (plural bride prices)

2. In some cultures, a sum of money or other valuables paid by a bridegroom or on his behalf to the family of the bride.

   Synonyms: bride gift, bride-gift, bridegift, bride wealth, bride-wealth, bridewealth, bride token, dower, reverse dowry, dowry (in its less common sense)

   Antonym: dowry (in its usual sense)

   Hypernyms: marriage-portion < price, fee, gift

   Hyponyms: mahr, lobola

   • 1937, Grace Crowfoot, “Custom and Folk Tale in Palestine. The Dowry or Bride Price,”, in Folklore, volume 48, number 1, page 31:

     It is well known in Artas as in other villages exactly what the bride price should customarily be—so much for a cousin bride, so much more for a village bride, more still for a stranger.

   • 2017 January 4, Liu Zhen, “Don’t pay over 60,000 yuan for a bride, say Chinese officials”, in South China Morning Post‎^[1], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 January 2017, China‎^[2]:

     Taiqian county in Henan province has issued guidelines saying grooms should pay no more than 60,000 yuan (HK$67,000) as a “bride price”, the Chinese tradition that a male partner offers money to his fiancée’s family to secure their marriage.

   • 2018 November, Lucy Moore, “Founding Mothers”, in Literary Review:

     Their fares across the Atlantic were paid on the understanding that when they married, their Virginian husbands would pay a bride price for them of 150 pounds of tobacco, then worth about £22 (perhaps seven years’ salary for a domestic maid).

• “bride price”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.