"Bridewealth" vs.

"Brideprice"
Author(s): George Dalton
Source: American Anthropologist , Jun., 1966, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Jun., 1966),
pp. 732-738
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association

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Brief Communications
"BRIDEWEALTH" VS. "BRIDEPRICE"'

The controversy over "bridewealth" vs. "brideprice" (Gray 1960; Gulliver

1961; Gibson 1962) is a symptom of theoretical malaise that afflicts eco-
nomic anthropology. Like controversies over whether sea shells and dogs'
teeth are really money (Dalton 1965), the issue comes down to this: on what
grounds is it useful to use a term with a very special meaning in Western
economy-price--to describe a transaction in primitive economy that in som
ways resembles the price transaction in our own and in some ways does not
The issue is not merely terminological. To use the term "brideprice" is to im
ply that payment at marriage is a market or commercial transaction and
therefore that marriage entails a commercial purchase of rights or services.

Evans-Pritchard's Position

The term "brideprice" is misleading because "price" has an inextricable

association with the commercial transactions of market purchase in European
economy. The material goods and the services that form a necessary paymen
at marriage-bridewealth-are not the same as the dollar price of a com-
modity: (1) the participants do not regard the payment of bridewealth as
commercial transaction (although it does have an "economic" component in
the sense that material goods and services enter); and (2) from the viewpoint
of the anthropologist, the social situation of which bridewealth is a part marks
off the transaction sharply from impersonal market purchase. The events an
circumstances of bridewealth are different in important ways from those of a
commercial exchange.
There are very good reasons for cutting the term [brideprice] out of ethnological literature
since at best it emphasizes only one of the functions of this wealth, an economic one, to the
exclusion of other important social functions; and since, at worst, it encourages the layman to
think that "price" used in this context is synonymous with "purchase" in common English
parlance. Hence we find people believing that wives are bought and sold in Africa in much the
same manner as commodities are bought and sold in European markets [Evans-Pritchard
1931:36].

Bridewealth paid at marriage has different functions in different societies

and may have several in the same society: to indemnify the girl's family for
the loss of her services, as an earnest of good intentions on the part of the groom
and his family, to solidify the new affinal bonds created by marriage, and to
legitimize children born to the union. It is better, therefore, to use a neutral
term, one that does not single out one of these functions, the "economic," as
the most important.
I do not myself see the necessity of using a symbol which refers to any one particular function
of this wealth as is the case with "price," "earnest," and "indemnity," but propose instead
the term ... "bride-wealth" ... [because] it does not attempt to define what are the many
aspects of this transference of wealth in the situation of marriage. .... the term bride-wealth
stresses very definitely the economic value of all the different things which are handed over

732

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 Brief Communications 733

by
For,the group of
whatever a man
else they to thebe,
may group of spears,
cattle, a woman as one
goats, of thepots,
arrows, concrete
labor,obligations
etc., have of
an the
eco-union,
nomic value. But while the economic value of these things is suggested in the term "bride-
wealth" there is no expressed indication that the wealth has any one particular economic
function such as is implied in the word "price," a function which is, as a matter of fact, very
little developed among African peoples out of contact with Europeans [Evans-Pritchard
1931:38].

Gray's Position
Among the Sonjo, transactions involving marriage payments are much like
other transactions (e.g., those involving rights to irrigation water) because
the same item-goats-is used to make payment. Therefore it is useful to
emphasize the similarity between payments at marriage and other trans-
actions by treating brideprice also as an economic transaction (just as we re-
gard the exchange of irrigation rights for goats as economic). Indeed, the eco-
nomic terms "purchase," "sale," and "price," if properly redefined, can be
applied to point up the similarity between brideprice payments and other
transactions within the Sonjo community.
The real question at issue is not, as Evans-Pritchard's statement suggests, whether African
wives are bought and sold in the same manner as commodities are bought and sold in Euro-
pean markets: it is whether women in some African societies are transferred as wives in a
manner that has a basic resemblance to the manner in which other economic commodities are
transferred in the same societies. Where this resemblance is found, then if economic terms
are applied to dealings in other commodities, I shall argue that it is legitimate to apply them
to dealings in wives as well [Gray 1960:35].

Critique
The ambiguity in Gray's argument is due to his implicit use of the word
"economic" to mean "commercial," so that all exchanges of "economic com-
modities" in Sonjoland are transmogrified into market exchanges. If goats for
irrigation rights are economic (commercial), then goats for brides are eco-
nomic (commercial), too. Therefore, we may call marriage payments "bride-
price." But markets do not exist in Sonjoland, so he must redefine market
terms (purchase, sale, price) to make them include any kind of exchange,
whether it be reciprocal gift-giving, redistributive payments to central
authority, or commercial purchase.
By purchase I mean the acquisition of property by giving goods in exchange for it. Selling is
the action of the person who delivers the property in exchange for other goods. Price is the
amount of goods asked or given for the property.... In thus defining these words I have
simply removed those implications relating to a money [i.e., a market] economy that inhere in
their usual dictionary definitions or their use in "common English parlance." This is necessary
if they are to be adapted to the economic systems of societies which lack money [i.e., market
exchange] [Gray 1960:35].

But this is precisely what one should not do if there are essential differences
between Western and Sonjo exchanges or between transactions within these
economies. To redefine familiar words in order to homogenize transactions does
not solve the problem as long as the Sonjo exchanges are essentially different
from the market exchanges in our own economy to which these terms apply.
To call a cat a quadruped, and then to say that because cats and dogs are both

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 734 American Anthropologist [68, 1966]
quadrupeds I shall call them all cats, does not c
Neither does it confuse dogs; it merely confuses th
women are commodities purchased and sold at a pr
transacted like Cadillacs and shoe polish in our ow
It is confusing to use the same words for different
by so doing, some points of analytical interest abo
scured.
It is indeed true in Sonjoland that rights in wo
goat payments, as are some other services (rights
some goods (honey). But this is not the same as say
cial transactions properly described by the words "
and "price."
One must be clear about this. Sonjo economy is not organized by market
exchange. Aside from the absence of market places in Sonjo villages (Gray
1962:470), almost all the transactions in which goat payments enter are apart
from subsistence livelihood. Bridewealth payments, as well as the other goat
transactions, are relatively infrequent, and no one depends for his daily living
on goat revenue from girls, honey, or irrigation rights. Gray tells us that occa-
sionally land may be leased for a goat payment, but apparently there are no
labor markets in Sonjoland. It is necessary to point all this out to understand
the transactional modes employed. We are dealing here with the occasional
use of goats as special purpose money in noncommercial transactions.
Moreover, in our economy one can buy Cadillacs and shoe polish if one has
the cash; religion, sex, ancestry, lineage, political affiliation do not enter.
There are few status barriers to commercial transactions. In bridewealth and
irrigation-water transactions there are status constraints. Neither brides no
irrigation rights are bartered to the highest bidder. Payment of goats is a neces
sary but insufficient condition for acquiring wives and irrigation rights. I
both, social relationships enter importantly.
In sum, what led Gray to prefer the term "brideprice" is that the item
comprising the marriage payment-goats-are also used in other Sonjo ex-
changes. And if these other transactions are "economic," so too is the marriage
transaction. In Gray's context, "economic" should mean simply "that which
involves resources or goods and services"; it should not mean a commercial
market exchange (Dalton 1961:5-7). In American society, too, marriage ha
an "economic" component-material goods such as wedding rings and pres-
ents are involved-but this does not mean that we think of the groom as buy
ing the bride with a wedding ring or gifts to her parents. Gray errs in using th
word "economic" to mean "commercial" instead of simply "goods and ser-
vices."
Our problem is to use Gray's important point and yet preserve the distinc-
tion that led Evans-Pritchard to prefer the term "bridewealth."

Money Uses and Transactional Modes in Sonjoland

Gray's important point is that in Western economy rights in wives ar
transacted in a different manner than goods and services, but not so in Sonjo-

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 Brief Communications 735
land. Here is one difference between Sonjo and West
tween Western and Sonjo family arrangements-that
Indeed, it is this similarity between marriage transa
that shaped Radcliffe-Brown's views on bridewealth.
The payment of cattle for a wife is functionally parallel to the p
who has been intentionally or accidentally killed: In both ca
demnity" payment of compensation to a group (family or clan
cliffe-Brown 1929, quoted in Evans-Pritchard 1931:37].

What makes the Sonjo case unusual is not that the bridewealth item
goats-enters other prestige transactions, but that goats are also used occa-
sionally to acquire low-echelon goods as well.
An individual who produces a crop of gourds exchanges them for goats with other Sonjo and
also Masai. The prevailing rate of exchange was eight gourds for one goat. The Masai also
exchange goats for Sonjo women and children. ... Sonjo smiths formerly obtained iron from
Masai smiths in exchange for goats. ... [Beehives] represent a useful reserve of goods which
can be mobilized and exchanged for other goods, usually goats, when the special need arises.
... Owners sometimes wish to dispose of land because they are not able to utilize it or because
they are in urgent need of goats. ... water theft is a common offense. .... it is punished with a
fine of one goat . . . a common way to build up a goat herd is to exchange honey for goats
[Gray 1962:469, 473, 478, 480, 485].

But goats are not the only item capable of performing one or more money uses.
These transactions usually involved the exchange of grain for irrigation rights and sometimes
for honey. A certain measure of grain . .. was regarded as equivalent to the standard jar of
honey (about two gallons), and exchanges were based on these equivalences. Payments for
irrigation water were usually evaluated in terms of honey-one-third of a jar was a common
amount for this payment-and if it was agreed to make the payment in grain, the honey
equivalent was calculated and paid [Gray 1962:484].

The unusual thing about goats in Sonjoland is that aside from being an im-
portant subsistence source for direct consumption, they perform several money
uses in transacting both low- and high-echelon goods and services in reciprocal
and redistributive exchanges. They also appear to be used occasionally in
transactions that resemble market exchange, but at fixed-price or set-rate
equivalances (e.g., in leasing land for goats).
Goats are more nearly like general purpose dollars or francs than is com-
monly the case in subsistence economies. Still, we think it more useful to use
nonmarket terminology to describe the role of goats as special money in
Sonjoland: goats are used primarily as means of (reciprocal) exchange in
bridewealth and other reciprocal transactions. Goats are also used as means of
(redistributive) payment when set-rate fees (depending upon one's status) are
paid for irrigation rights.
. .. a class of men, called wakiama ... are required as individuals to pay substantial tribute
in goats to the wenamiji [hereditary council of elders] as a group [for irrigation rights]. . . . The
goats which are paid to them as water tax by the wakiama are all supposed to be used in
communal sacrifices for the general spiritual benefit of the village, but much of this meat ends
up in their own family pots. Some of these goats are turned over to the priests, again with the
understanding that they will be offered to God on behalf of the whole village [Gray 1962:479].

In many subsistence economies there are ranked spheres of goods and

services. Goods within any sphere may be exchanged (via reciprocity, redistri-
bution, or the market), but not goods in different spheres (Firth 1958:69;

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 736 American Anthropologist [68, 1966]
Bohannan 1959). What is important in Sonjoland is th
stitutionalized means of conversion between spheres:
. . fathers with more daughters than sons tend to accumulate goa
for subsistence or luxury goods, land or superior irrigation right

This is also true in emergency situations, in which the

ward to get goats for pressing purposes or, when su
threatened, to get grain for goats.
The Masai also exchange goats for Sonjo women and children. ..
... goats are then readily exchanged for grain.... The decision t
goats is only made when there is sudden and pressing need for
happens, for instance when the deadline for paying a brideprice
. .. is willing to give up part of his land ... temporarily because of
goats, perhaps as brideprice for a son's wife [Gray 1962:469, 484

When we consider a community like that of the Son

changes are absent or infrequent, we cannot expect an
resemble dollars closely because the bundle of money attr
ize dollars is conferred by the nationally integrated
within which they are used (Dalton 1965). If in this c
quantifiable objects that perform one or more mone
dard, exchange, etc.-it is useful to regard them as lim
monies that express the special (noncommercial) tran
ployed in that economy.
Because of the exchange use of money under our market organiza
apt to think of money in too narrow terms. No object is money p
appropriate field can function as money. In truth, money is a sys
language, writing, or weights and measures. These differ from on
pose serviced, the symbols employed, and the degree to which t
purpose [Polanyi 1957].

It is not the intrinsic characteristics of the money-stuf

from other things, but rather the uses or purposes that
That dollars perform all the commercial and noncom
service all transactional modes, and are a "full-time" mon
from the performance of money functions is due to
market integration. We should not be surprised to fin
uses, and the folk view toward indigenous money and
ours where market organization is absent (just as we a
kinship obligations differing from ours where family or

Conclusion

As with controversies over primitive money and whether the potlatch is

really investment, the "bridewealth" vs. "brideprice" controversy is about the
kinds of transactional modes that exist in primitive economies. The contro-
versy indicates the need to establish unambiguous categories for classifying
types of exchanges, appropriations, and transactions in small-scale economies
that are neither industrialized nor integrated by markets for labor, land, or
produce. Bridewealth, bloodwealth, potlatch, kula, silent trade, debt bondage,

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 Brief Communications 737
etc., are transactions that superficially resemble fam
actions in market economies-something is paid over
else-but are different in objective ways from comm
regarded by the participants as different.
One must resort to analogy. In the United States,
tion are superficially similar in that both entail an exch
for material payments. I assume we would all agree,
lying differences between marriage and prostitution
the similarities: the length of the relationship, the folk
the extent of the kinship connections established, the q
Despite the similarity that both involve an exchan
material goods or money, once the different folk view
of each are taken into account, marriage and its m
clearly seen as a reciprocal transaction while prostitutio
What are needed in economic anthropology are a
that allow us to assess the relative importance of sim
between commercial and noncommercial transactions
anthropologists use their own market economy (ca
comparison in describing primitive economies. Many
fore controversies-are created by an unjustified tran
omy into market language due to the failure to appr
differences between subsistence economy and our
Where markets and Western money are absent, dig
capital, and brides are not priced.
GEORGE DALTON
Northwestern Universi
NOTE

1 I am grateful to Paul Bohannan and John Middleton for their critical comments
portant to note that the controversy refers to the nature of bridewealth payments o
indigenous items-for example, cows, goats, etc. Francs or sterling paid as bridewe
different situation (see Dalton 1964; 1965).

REFERENCES CITED

BOHANNAN, PAUL
1959 The impact of money on an African subsistence economy. J
History 19:491-503.
DALTON, GEORGE
1961 Economic theory and primitive society. American Anthropolog
1962 Traditional production in primitive African economies. Quarter
nomics 76:360-378.
1964 The development of subsistence and peasant economies in Africa. International
Social Science Journal 16:378-389.
1965 Primitive money. American Anthropologist 67:44-65.
EVANS-PRITCHARD, E. E.
1931 An alternative term for "bride-price." Man 31:36-39.
FmTH, RAYMOND
1958 Work and wealth of primitive communities. In Human types. Rev. ed. New York,
Mentor Books.

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 738 American Anthropologist [68, 1966]
GIBSON, GORDON D.
1962 Bridewealth and other forms of exchange among the
P. Bohannan and G. Dalton, eds. Evanston, Northweste
GRAY, ROBERT F.
1960 Sonjo bride-price and the question of African "wife
pologist 62:34-57.
1962 Economic exchange in a Sonjo village. In Markets in
Dalton, eds. Evanston, Northwestern University Press.
GULLIVER, P. H.
1961 Bridewealth: the economic vs. the noneconomic inter
pologist 63:1098-1099.
POLANYI, KARL
1957 Notes on the place occupied by economies in societie
economic aspects of institutional growth. Mimeo, Colum
RADCLIFFE-BROWN, A. R.
1929 Bride-price, earnest or indemnity. Man 29:131-132.

OBLIQUE DISCONTINUOUS EXCHANGE: A NEW FO

PRESCRIPTIVE ALLIANCE

The purpose of this brief note is twofold: firstly, to propose a further formal
type of prescriptive alliance, and secondly, to ask colleagues to keep an eye
open for it in their field or literary researches.

The formal proposition is that a system in which marriage is prescribed

with a category of women including the mother's brother's daughter and the
sister's daughter, and prohibited with the category including the father's
sister's daughter, is typologically a development of direct exchange and the
closed equivalent to prescriptive patrilateral cross-cousin marriage in an open-
ended system.
The discontinuous aspect of patrilateral cross-cousin marriage is stressed
by Levi-Strauss in Les Structures 164mentaires de la Parente, but has mainly
been ignored by commentators on this work. The form of prescriptive alliance
proposed here contains a similar discontinuous character since both systems
share the feature that the flow of women is reversed in alternate generations.
This is obvious in the diagram, where the direction in which women move is
indicated by arrows.

c-

4-
?c-
4---

i. Prescriptive i.
alliance with
Prescriptive FZD.
alliance with MBD/

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