Bride Price and Dowry!!!! Who would have thought?

I learnt today that some of the indigenous cultures in Uganda practice what is called ``bride price.`` Under this system, the guy has to pay a price to the bride’s parents for her hand in marriage. Ostensibly, this is to honour the parents for raising a daughter. There is some movement afoot to abolish this system as many claims that it is detrimental to women. I could not help but contracts this to the other well known marriage price system that existed and continues to exist in India. There, the woman’s parents have to pay the downy for their daughter to get their daughter married. It is the opposite to the Ugandan system, but none the less, it is a marriage that is fixed by price. It is a cultural similarity that is manifested in different forms in different regions.
A lesser known system exists in Islam, where the groom is required to pay a dowry to the bride, to be used by her at her leisure (though this is hardly operationalised on the ground as anticipated). This is similar to the Ugandan process!

Have I discovered a cultural universal?

At the end of the day, it seems that there is a price to a woman, whichever way it is looked at and this can only lead to loss of dignity and ill treatment. One of the letters I came across in a magazine detailed how a woman was ``arranged into a marriage`` and could not leave because of the bride price paid to her father. As a result, she had to suffer the abuse and neglect. This brings up an interesting book I just completed: Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani (Indian Canadian Parsee) had one main character plagued by some form of bride price. It makes for an interesting read.