Should We Revive Dowries and Bride Prices? (Why Selling Your Kids Increased Their Value)

In this intriguing discussion, Malcolm and Simone dive into the historical and contemporary practices of dowries and bride prices, questioning whether modern society should consider revisiting these traditions. From the surprising origins of Santa Claus to the practice's prevalence across cultures, they explore why dowries and bride prices have persisted through time. They also delve into how such traditions impact social structures, fertility rates, and economic advantages for young couples. The episode pivotally highlights the modern variations within Silicon Valley and effective altruist circles, including the phenomenon of 'marriage bounties.' Join them as they unpack the multifaceted layers of these age-old customs and their potential relevance today.

[00:00:00]

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be here with you today because I have something on my mind and we need to talk through it because I don't know, should we return to selling women as brides and should we be selling off our children as partners? And you also

Malcolm Collins: told me that this happened frequently, like way more recently than I thought.

Like, yeah, no, we're gonna

Simone Collins: go into it. We're gonna go into it. I mean, also like, can it be so wrong if like, literally this practice gave birth to Santa Claus? Wait, what? Hold on. Wait. Well, on Saint Nicholas became famous for secretly providing dowry money to three impoverished sisters, saving them from a life of destitution and prostitution.

That is where Saint Nicholas, like, it's one of his famous things. And that really this, this stalking tradition comes from this, this, this, this myth perhaps, or story of him having. Put gold coins in their shoes or stockings that were drying by the fire at night. You didn't know [00:01:00] this. Come on, you know your Christmas lore.

Malcolm Collins: I didn't know that this was women so that they could buy husbands. I didn't know. That's

Simone Collins: the thing. It's like this is so pervasive and what our whole thing about culture is. As a culture, if you want to maintain relevancy and strength, you should look to traditions that other cultures have widely adopted that appear to correlate with thriving in some way, and ask yourself, Hey, should I maybe be doing this?

And keep in mind that in higher fertility rate countries which are developing countries, 65 to 75% have bride prices or variants of that tradition. Whereas in developed countries, virtually 0% have these. Now, although I'm gonna argue actually that's not quite true.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But in, in Rich Silicon Valley culture is quite common.

But well, basically, like

Simone Collins: both historically and presently, the most wealthy and educated people are still doing it. So Yeah. But like. What, what academics will probably tell you is like, well, [00:02:00] it's lower than 5% in developed countries and only those are like backwards immigrant communities. And I don't know about that guys.

The, the fertility rates of cultures that still practice this are. They're higher. There, there are obviously a lot of things that are wrong with these things, but what they do do is actually kind of, it has me, you and I need to have a talk on whether or not we're gonna do some variant of this.

Because think about it. They, they legitimize marriage. You know, you're, you're, you're, when you add a cost to something, you make it a bigger deal. You increase commitment. Switching costs, like divorce is a much bigger deal, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, so I think a huge part of this is switching costs.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think that that's why it develops so frequently as a, as a a practice because you know, you're much less likely to get divorced or go off and try to marry multiple people if you have to pay a bunch of money to do it.

Simone Collins: We'll get to that. Can you? But like, also like it gets the family involved. So it wasn't, it's not just that money was attached to this, it's that like. Your mom and your dad and maybe your grandparents and [00:03:00] maybe even your broader like family has contributed to your marriage, like happening financially.

And they're gonna be pissed if you cheat or you, you know, are a bad spouse or you screw it up somehow. And like, I think that that pressure's really good. And we need to have parents become more involved in their kids' matchmaking anyway. Plus in many of these traditions, the money actually goes to the couple.

Gives them a nest egg, which is one of those like, sort of sticking points these days where, you know, couples feel like, well, I can't get married, I can't start a family because I don't have, you know, I can't buy a house. I can't do money. And, and one of the more common forms of dowries and bride prices is, is indeed property is, is is most commonly money.

This is the stuff that can really get a family started. So I'm like, oh gosh.

Yeah. Well, so first, just to clarify for those who are not very familiar with bride prices or dowries, dowries are what parents of a woman, like a young lady, will pay to the husband's family or the, the husband [00:04:00] for. Basically marrying off their, their daughter bride. Prices are what grooms families or grooms pay for brides.

And the difference in when there's a bride price or a dowry comes down to some interesting factors. And just to be clear. Most cultures practice bride prices, dowries are actually pretty unusual. But I actually think that based on the criteria that we're gonna go over, that maybe dowries are what more developed countries should be considering.

So bride prices are more common in. Polygamous cultures where you have multiple wives versus dowries where it's, it's more common to be in monogamous cultures where there's a scarcity of wealthy women. And then bride prices. In contrast, they're more common where like manual labor is valued over capital.

So they're more like rural pastoral agricultural, and where women's labor is really crucial for the family survivor survivals. So you're paying for women because they're [00:05:00] rare and you really need them and you're, you're kind of desperate to get wise. That

Malcolm Collins: makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, when I think about where dowries are more often paid, they're like in like wealthy medieval European nobility, right?

Mm-hmm. We're like, the girls are not out working a farm and you're getting into monogamous relationships. Yeah. You're really sort of paying for the monogamy.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And where bride prices are most common now are still in Africa for the most part. Like they're super pervasive in Africa. I had an

Malcolm Collins: friend who told me about a wedding she went to when we were in college together and she went down for, yeah.

A wedding. And she said what they would do is they would lay out all of the things they had bought as a Pro Bob Bride price. Whoa. In front of all the wedding guests, right? Oh, you showed it. All, all the wedding guests get to go up and look and inspect to see like how much. Like nice fabric. Was this woman worth?

Like that's one of the big things she said is, wow, you have like, just, yeah. Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: yeah, in some cases, traditional clothing is given jewelry, gold

Malcolm Collins: animals, et cetera. Mm-hmm. And so the [00:06:00] guests could go up and inspect the things that were given for the bride price, which was actually a quite fun thing to do in a wedding.

And