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117-475: The term nadītu is a feminine noun derived from Akkadian nadû , "to throw down", "to cast away" or in agricultural context "to leave a field fallow ", and on this basis it has been proposed it can be translated as "fallow", here to be understood metaphorically as " barren woman ". It could be represented by the Sumerogram LUKUR, which originally designated a type of priestess possibly regarded as

234-467: A dowry with them upon initiation, though after the death of a nadītu it was supposed to return to her family, as did anything acquired by her through her life. Therefore, it is possible that sending a daughter to become a nadītu was often a way to secure greater financial security for her brothers, which was a common concern due to economic hardships widespread in the Old Babylonian period. It

351-463: A reverse auction was needed to determine the dowry to be paid to a swain. In case of divorce without reason, a man was required to give his wife the dowry she brought as well as the bride price the husband gave. The return of dowry could be disputed, if the divorce was for a reason allowed under Babylonian law. A wife's dowry was administered by her husband as part of the family assets. He had no say, however, in its ultimate disposal; and legally,

468-433: A Russian advice book of the 16th century for upper classes, includes advice to set aside property for purposes of a dowry, and use it to accumulate linens, clothing, and other things for it, rather than have to suddenly buy it all for the wedding; if the daughter should happen to die, the dowry should be used to give alms and for prayers for her soul, although some might be set aside for other daughters. In late Tsarist Russia

585-496: A bride they care nothing whether she has a dowry and a handsome fortune, but look only to her beauty and other advantages of the outward person. Arrian , The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great , 3rd century BC Arrian's second book similarly notes, They (Indians) marry without either giving or taking dowries, but the women as soon as they are marriageable are brought forward by their fathers in public, to be selected by

702-400: A bridge ( German : Brücke , f. ) more often used the words 'beautiful', 'elegant', 'pretty', and 'slender', while Spanish speakers, whose word for bridge is masculine ( puente , m. ), used 'big', 'dangerous', 'strong', and 'sturdy' more often. However, studies of this kind have been criticized on various grounds and yield an unclear pattern of results overall. A noun may belong to

819-487: A class of religious personnel. The position of nadītu has additionally been compared with that of other similar groups of women known from Old Babylonian sources, such as qadištu , kulmašītu and ugbabtu . Marten Stol argues that it is difficult to fully separate these groups. Grammatical gender In linguistics , a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to

936-511: A daughter could also serve as a way to protect a nadītu' s belongings from being seized, for example by creditors of the estate of her father, as directly attested in one case. Many nadītu seemingly reached elderly age, possibly because their partially secluded lifestyle made it easier for them to avoid epidemics common through the Old Babylonian period, in addition to the presumed religious regulations placed on them shielding them from possible health complications resulting from childbirth. Due to

1053-601: A different instrument than on the Continent. The Salic law , which required females to be disinherited and disenfranchised from land ownership, did not apply in England. Single women held many rights men did. The most famous example of this English female inheritance and agency right is perhaps Elizabeth I of England , who held all rights a male monarch did. While single women held rights to hold property equivalent to those of men, marriage and married women were affected by

1170-467: A distinct social class might be preferable to classifying them as a subgroup of clergy. They were dedicated to the god of a specific city, and were expected to reside in it. As argued by Tonia Sharlach, their status can be compared to that of medieval Christian nuns and Marten Stol outright refers to them as "nuns". However, this approach has been criticized by Katrin De Graef, who argues it might lead to

1287-412: A dowry. Gioachino Rossini 's opera La Cenerentola makes this economic basis explicit: Don Magnifico wishes to make his own daughters' dowries larger, to attract a grander match, which is impossible if he must provide a third dowry. One common penalty for the kidnapping and rape of an unmarried woman was that the abductor or rapist had to provide the woman's dowry. Until the late 20th century this

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1404-682: A few documents each. It was originally assumed that the gagû in Sippar was abandoned during the reign of Samsuiluna , around 1686 BCE, though subsequent research revealed that it continued to function in the times of Samsuditana . Most likely it started to gradually decline in the aftermath of economic troubles attested during the reign of Abi-Eshuh . However, later economic texts still record many activities undertaken by nadītu , for example leasing out fields, hiring laborers, purchasing slaves, extending loans and less commonly borrowing or leasing. Seth Richardson suggests that this might be an indication that

1521-445: A fourth of the remaining wealth to her upkeep till she is ready to marry, and then give the rest to her to take with her into her married life. Dowry was common in different historic periods of China and continued through the modern history. Locally called " 嫁妝 ( Jiàzhuāng ), the dowry ranged from land, jewelry, money to a collection of clothing, sewing equipment and collection of household items. Mann and others find that dowry

1638-401: A given class because of characteristic features of its referent , such as sex, animacy, shape, although in some instances a noun can be placed in a particular class based purely on its grammatical behavior. Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", but others use different definitions for each. Many authors prefer "noun classes" when none of the inflections in

1755-482: A historical correlation between the practices of "diverging devolution" (dowry) and the development of intensive plough agriculture on the one hand, and homogeneous inheritance (brideprice) and extensive hoe agriculture on the other. Drawing on the work of Ester Boserup , Goody notes that the sexual division of labour varies in intensive plough agriculture and extensive shifting horticulture. In sparsely populated regions where shifting cultivation takes place, most of

1872-607: A joint family. She would often sell this property for cash to overcome hard economic times or needs of her children and husband. In a few cases, she may transfer the property she brought as dowry to her daughter or daughter-in-law. Dowry assets once transferred in turn constituted separate wealth of the woman who received it ( sifang qian , etc.). Often a woman who brought a large dowry was considered more virtuous in Chinese culture than one who didn't. In parts of China, both dowry and brideprice ( pinjin ) were practiced from ancient eras to

1989-445: A language relate to sex, such as when an animate –inanimate distinction is made. Note, however, that the word "gender" derives from Latin genus (also the root of genre ) which originally meant "kind", so it does not necessarily have a sexual meaning. A classifier, or measure word , is a word or morpheme used in some languages together with a noun, principally to enable numbers and certain other determiners to be applied to

2106-462: A language which uses classifiers normally has a number of different ones, used with different sets of nouns. These sets depend largely on properties of the things that the nouns denote (for example, a particular classifier may be used for long thin objects, another for flat objects, another for people, another for abstracts, etc.), although sometimes a noun is associated with a particular classifier more by convention than for any obvious reason. However it

2223-1116: A marital household, and therefore might include furnishings such as linens and furniture. Locally, dowry or trousseau is called jahez in Urdu , jahizie in Persian and Arabic ; dahej in Hindi , dāj in Punjabi , daijo in Nepali , çeyiz in Turkish , joutuk in Bengali , jiazhuang in Mandarin , varadhachanai in Tamil , khatnam in Telugu , streedhanam in Malayalam , miraz in Serbo-Croatian and in various parts of Africa

2340-527: A misunderstanding of ancient institutions, and states using the original Akkadian nadītu is preferable. References to nadītu are present exclusively in texts from the Old Babylonian period . There is no evidence they already existed in the Ur III period , and despite the use of the term lukur to refer to Old Babylonian nadītu there is no indication that the women designated by the former label in

2457-451: A money dowry. In Romania in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (1750–1830s) the exclusion of dowered girls from the family inheritance led to increased cohesion within the nuclear family. The wife's male relatives controlled the dowry but she retained sole ownership of the dowry and wedding gifts. Her relatives could prosecute the husband for squandering a dowry; wives gained some ability to leave an abusive marriage. The long-term result

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2574-416: A new household. Dos was given for the purpose of enabling the husband to sustain the charges of the marriage state (onera matrimonii). All the property of the wife which was not dowry, or was not a donatio propter nuptias, continued to be her own property, and was called Parapherna . The dowry could include any form of property, given or promised at the time of marriage, but only what remained after deducting

2691-417: A noun manifests itself in two principal ways: in the modifications that the noun itself undergoes, and in modifications of other related words ( agreement ). Grammatical gender manifests itself when words related to a noun like determiners , pronouns or adjectives change their form ( inflect ) according to the gender of noun they refer to ( agreement ). The parts of speech affected by gender agreement,

2808-497: A system include later forms of Proto-Indo-European (see below ), Sanskrit , some Germanic languages , most Slavic languages , a few Romance languages ( Romanian , Asturian and Neapolitan ), Marathi , Latin , and Greek . Here nouns that denote animate things (humans and animals) generally belong to one gender, and those that denote inanimate things to another (although there may be some deviation from that principle). Examples include earlier forms of Proto-Indo-European and

2925-542: A way that sounds like the masculine declensions in South-Eastern Norwegian dialects. The same does not apply to Swedish common gender, as the declensions follow a different pattern from both the Norwegian written languages. Norwegian Nynorsk , Norwegian Bokmål and most spoken dialects retain masculine, feminine and neuter even if their Scandinavian neighbors have lost one of the genders. As shown,

3042-528: A woman's dowry was often returned to her family. Coverture never applied universally in Britain and was repealed in the 1800s. This effectively ended the concept of dowry as the property of a single woman was either retained by her after marriage or its income became marital property under joint control with a husband (not under his sole control as in coverture). In some parts of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, land dowries were common. The Domostroy ,

3159-415: Is a payment, such as land property, monetary, cattle or any commercial asset that is paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower . While bride price or bride service is a payment by the groom , or his family, to the bride, or her family, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride, or her family, to

3276-492: Is a third available gender, so nouns with sexless or unspecified-sex referents may be either masculine, feminine, or neuter. There are also certain exceptional nouns whose gender does not follow the denoted sex, such as the German Mädchen , meaning "girl", which is neuter. This is because it is actually a diminutive of "Magd" and all diminutive forms with the suffix -chen are neuter. Examples of languages with such

3393-534: Is also found in Dravidian languages . (See below .) It has been shown that grammatical gender causes a number of cognitive effects. For example, when native speakers of gendered languages are asked to imagine an inanimate object speaking, whether its voice is male or female tends to correspond to the grammatical gender of the object in their language. This has been observed for speakers of Spanish, French, and German, among others. Caveats of this research include

3510-523: Is also possible for a given noun to be usable with any of several classifiers; for example, the Mandarin Chinese classifier 个 ( 個 ) gè is frequently used as an alternative to various more specific classifiers. Grammatical gender can be realized as inflection and can be conditioned by other types of inflection, especially number inflection, where the singular-plural contrast can interact with gender inflection. The grammatical gender of

3627-545: Is an evolutionary model in which these historical variables may not be the decisive factors today. Susan Mann argues, in contrast, with examples where even in late Imperial China, dowry was a form of female inheritance. Stanley J. Tambiah later argued that Goody's overall thesis remained pertinent in North India , although it required modification to meet local circumstances. He points out that dowry in North India

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3744-613: Is assigned to one of the genders, and few or no nouns can occur in more than one gender. Gender is considered an inherent quality of nouns, and it affects the forms of other related words, a process called "agreement" . Nouns may be considered the "triggers" of the process, whereas other words will be the "target" of these changes. These related words can be, depending on the language: determiners , pronouns , numerals , quantifiers , possessives , adjectives , past and passive participles , articles , verbs , adverbs , complementizers , and adpositions . Gender class may be marked on

3861-401: Is attested from the fourteenth year of Ammiditana . In Sippar women typically became nadītu around the age of fifteen. To initiate a girl, a written guarantee that she will be provided for by her family was necessary. The initiation took place during a ceremony held in honor of Shamash known as sebût šattim , and involved placing a rope associated with this god on the arm of a woman entering

3978-465: Is based on interpreting verses of ancient Sanskrit scriptures from India, not eyewitness accounts. Available eyewitness observations from ancient India give a different picture. One of these are the eyewitness records from Alexander the Great 's conquest ( ca . 300 BC), as recorded by Arrian and Megasthenes. Arrian's first book mentions a lack of dowry, They (these ancient Indian people) make their marriages accordance with this principle, for in selecting

4095-424: Is known about their social position. Like in Sippar, they were expected to remain unmarried, and similarly could partake in economic activities. They did not change their names after being initiated, and most bore ordinary ones typical for the period, such as Lamasum, Kunutum or Ištar-lamasi. They lived in a separate area of the city, but it was not necessarily organized identically as its counterpart in Sippar, and it

4212-497: Is known as serotwana , idana , saduquat or mugtaf . Anthropologist Jack Goody 's comparative study of dowry systems around the world utilizing the Ethnographic Atlas demonstrated that dowry is a form of inheritance found in the broad swath of Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland that practice "diverging devolution", i.e., that transmit property to children regardless of sex. This practice differs from

4329-418: Is masculine (meaning "lake") its genitive singular form is Sees , but when it is feminine (meaning "sea"), the genitive is See , because feminine nouns do not take the genitive -s . Gender is sometimes reflected in other ways. In Welsh , gender marking is mostly lost on nouns; however, Welsh has initial mutation , where the first consonant of a word changes into another in certain conditions. Gender

4446-476: Is not certain if nadītu were expected to remain celibate , as no explicit references to any vows meant to guarantee that are known. They could not have biological children, though the reasons behind this taboo remain unknown. According to Katrin De Graef, at the same time it cannot be ruled out that they were allowed to engage in intercourse which did not result in pregnancy, and additionally two cases of nadītu apparently becoming pregnant and subsequently giving

4563-416: Is one of the factors that can cause one form of mutation (soft mutation). For instance, the word merch "girl" changes into ferch after the definite article . This only occurs with feminine singular nouns: mab "son" remains unchanged. Adjectives are affected by gender in a similar way. Additionally, in many languages, gender is often closely correlated with the basic unmodified form ( lemma ) of

4680-635: Is only described as KI.LUKUR.RA, "place of the nadītu ". A gagû overseen by an official referred to as wakil nadiātim in which nadītu dedicated to the local war god Zababa resided existed in Kish. Similarly to the nadītu of Shamash, its inhabitants did not marry. The texts from Tell Ischali, presumed to be ancient Nerebtum, a city in the kingdom of Eshnunna , do not contain much information about religious officials, but they mention five women designated as nadītu , three of whom, Kurrītum, Amat-Šamaš and Aja-bēlet-mātim, are explicitly identified as being in

4797-458: Is only partially used as a bride's conjugal fund, and that a large part goes directly to the groom's joint family. This would initially seem to discount Goody's model, except that in North India, the joint family is composed of the groom's parents, his married brothers and unmarried sisters, and their third generation children. This joint family controlled this part of the dowry, which they used to help fund their own daughter/sister's dowries. But when

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4914-454: Is only partially valid, and many nouns may belong to a gender category that contrasts with their meaning, e.g. the word for "manliness" could be of feminine gender, as it is in French with "la masculinité" and "la virilité". In such a case, the gender assignment can also be influenced by the morphology or phonology of the noun, or in some cases can be apparently arbitrary. Usually each noun

5031-415: Is reserved for abstract concepts derived from adjectives: such as lo bueno , lo malo ("that which is good/bad"). Natural gender refers to the biological sex of most animals and people, while grammatical gender refers to certain phonetic characteristics (the sounds at the end, or beginning) of a noun. Among other lexical items, the definite article changes its form according to this categorization. In

5148-417: Is the fact that seemingly none of the latter bore theophoric names invoking their god, though some instances of names invoking his temple, Esagil , or the closely associated god Asalluhi have been noted. In Nippur, local nadītu were associated with the god Ninurta . A single text from dated to the reign of Damiq-ilishu , might mention a nadītu dedicated to the deity Isar-pada instead. Relatively little

5265-436: Is the type of property controlled by the household. Bridewealth circulates property and women, and is typical of societies where property is limited. Dowry concentrates property and is found in property owning classes or commercial or landed pastoral peoples. When families give dowry, they not only ensure their daughter's economic security, they also "buy" the best possible husband for her, and son-in-law for themselves. Even in

5382-471: The First Dynasty of Babylon . There is no indication that multiple sisters from within one family could become nadītu of Marduk, in contrast with the evidence pertaining to those connected to Shamash, and outside of Sippar no instances of a single family making one daughter a nadītu of city god and another of Marduk have been identified. A further difference between the nadītu of Shamash and Marduk

5499-464: The Norman Conquest changes to the law in the 12th century. Coverture was introduced to the common law in some jurisdictions, requiring property of a wife to be held in the husband's name, custody and control. The Normans also introduced the dowry in England replacing the earlier custom of the new husband giving a morning gift to his bride. At first the husband publicly gave the dowry at

5616-465: The gagû area, in addition to various officials overseeing them and weaver women employed by the community. Female servants and cooks are also mentioned in a number of sources. Male servants are also attested, though they were not numerous. Some of them were Suteans . The walls surrounding the gagû were most likely monumentally tall, and their repair was considered an accomplishment suitable to commemorate in year names by Babylonian rulers . One example

5733-462: The nadītu is most likely part of a broader phenomenon which also impacted other classes of women, stemming from long-term impact of the numerous wars waged between 1914 and 1727 BCE, which resulted in widespread impoverishment and militarization of society in the following century. In addition to Sippar, groups of nadītu also resided in other cities, including Babylon , Kish , Nippur and Tell Ishchali , though they were not necessarily subject to

5850-424: The "junior wife" of a god she served. Nadītu are also often described as priestesses in modern Assyriological literature, but this designation is not universally accepted, as while they most likely did spend a part of their day on prayer, there is no other indication that they had religious duties, and they did not prepare religious festivals or maintain temples , which lead to proposals that referring to them as

5967-455: The "triggers" of the process, because they have an inherent gender, whereas related words that change their form to match the gender of the noun can be considered the "target" of these changes. These related words can be, depending on the language: determiners , pronouns , numerals , quantifiers , possessives , adjectives , past and passive participles , verbs , adverbs , complementizers , and adpositions . Gender class may be marked on

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6084-682: The (proposed) wife may give it back to him of her own will (if she does not want to marry). Al-Biruni , Chapter on Matrimony in India , about 1035 AD Al-Biruni further claims that a daughter, in 11th-century India, had legal right to inherit from her father, but only a fourth part of her brother. The daughter took this inheritance amount with her when she married, claimed Al-Biruni, and she had no rights to income from her parents after her marriage or to any additional inheritance after her father's death. If her father died before her marriage, her guardian would first pay off her father's debt, then allocate

6201-471: The 20th century. Though throughout the history of China, the practice of using a brideprice has largely been used instead of dowries, but has slowly diminished in modern times. Dowry was widely practiced in Europe until the early modern era. Folklorists often interpret the folk tale Cinderella as the competition between the stepmother and the stepdaughter for resources, which may include the need to provide

6318-747: The Archconfraternity of the Annunciation, a Roman charity dedicated to providing dowries, received the entire estate of Pope Urban VII . In 1425, the Republic of Florence created a public fund, called the Monte delle doti , to provide dowries to Florentine brides. Vast inheritances were standard as dowries for aristocratic and royal brides in Europe during the Middle Ages. The Portuguese crown gave two cities in India and Morocco as dowry to

6435-521: The British Crown in 1661 when King Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza , a princess of Portugal. In some cases, nuns were required to bring a dowry when joining a convent . At some times, such as Ancien Régime France, convents were also used by some parents to put less attractive daughters, so that the more marriageable daughters could have larger dowries. Ancien Régime families that could not provide proper dowries also used

6552-571: The English aristocracy sent few of their eligible daughters to convents. Failure to provide a customary, or agreed-upon, dowry could cause a marriage to be called off. William Shakespeare made use of such an event in King Lear : one of Cordelia's suitors gives up his suit upon hearing that King Lear will give her no dowry. In Measure for Measure , Claudio and Juliet's premarital sex was brought about by their families' wrangling over dowry after

6669-412: The administrative practices of their community became less centralized with time due to the lack of a strong centralized state overseeing the related institutions. A handful of texts mention what he characterizes as " corporate activity of the gagû ", which is the only attestation of collective social or economic activity of women from the end of the Old Babylonian period. The decline of economic status of

6786-571: The beginning of 20th century, bridewealth , rather than dowry was the common custom, which often resulted in poor boys remaining unmarried. Stanley J. Tambiah claims the ancient Code of Manu sanctioned dowry and bridewealth in ancient India (typically in Rohtak) and especially in Kadia families, but dowry was the more prestigious form and associated with the Brahmanic (priestly) caste. Bridewealth

6903-423: The betrothal. Angelo's motive for forswearing his betrothal with Mariana was the loss of her dowry at sea. In Victorian England , dowries were viewed by some members of the upper class as an early payment of the daughter's inheritance . In some instances, daughters who had not received their dowries were the only female heirs entitled to part of the estate when their parents died. If a couple died without children,

7020-488: The child up for adoption has been identified. Adoption of children by nadītu was also permitted, with many cases of such a procedure involving either a younger nadītu (either a niece or an unrelated woman) or a slave. For example, a legal text of a nadītu named Erišti-Aya records that she both liberated a certain Surratum and adopted her. Another similar document, dated to the fourteenth year of Ammisaduqa , deals with

7137-664: The church door at the wedding. If the husband died first, which was frequent, there was a Widows dowry of one third of the husband's lands at the time of his marriage; the income, and in some cases, the management, of the lands, was assigned to her for the rest of her life. This concept is included in the Great Charter , and along with the recognition of female inheritance and absence of the Salic law , and women, particularly single women, holding many rights equivalent to those men held, manifests English law differing fundamentally from

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7254-400: The circumstances in which it occurs, and the way words are marked for gender vary between languages. Gender inflection may interact with other grammatical categories like number or case . In some languages the declension pattern followed by the noun itself will be different for different genders. The gender of a noun may affect the modifications that the noun itself undergoes, particularly

7371-652: The cloister. The new nadītu was expected to take on an appropriate name. Amat-Šamaš, "servant of Shamash", was the most popular, though Erišti-Šamaš, "requested by Shamash", is also well attested. Names invoking Aya are known too, for example Erišti-Aya, "requested by Aya". Some of the nadītu hailed from other cities, for example Babylon , Mari or Dilbat , rather than Sippar itself. They also originated in different social classes, with attested relatives including smiths, scribes, doctors, clergymen, military and judicial officials, and in some cases rulers. Daughters of kings Sumulael, Sin-Muballit and Zimri-Lim were nadītu , as

7488-558: The convents as places to put their daughters. In the County of Bentheim in Lower Saxony , for instance, parents who had no sons might give a land dowry to their new son-in-law. It was commonly given with the condition that he take the surname of his bride, in order to continue the family name. Dowry was used in England. However, the right of daughters to inherit and of women to hold property and other rights in their own name made it

7605-399: The course of their life in the cloister as a result. On this basis it has been argued that while the social structures typical for the Old Babylonian period were meant to constrain their agency , and their status was not a result of free choice, in some cases at least temporarily they were unintentionally subject to economic empowerment which put them economically on par with men. However, by

7722-403: The debts. Not only the bride's family, any person could donate his property as dowry for the woman. Two types of dowry were known— dos profectitia and dos adventitia . That dos is profectitia which was given by the father or father's father of the bride. All other dos is adventitia. Roman law also allowed for a species of dowry, called dos receptitia , which was given by some other person than

7839-650: The discovery of school texts in some of their houses, it has been suggested they might have been literate. Nadītu often relied on the financial support of their families, though there is evidence that some of them took part in business transactions themselves instead. Some of these belonging to the former category at times were not provided with adequate supplies, and records of appeals to kings to save them from starvation have been discovered. Sources from Sippar indicate that nadītu were allowed to manage their own economic affairs. Affluent women whose dowry included real estate and slaves were often able to become richer through

7956-439: The dowry had to be kept separate for it was expected to support the wife and her children. The wife was entitled to her dowry at her husband's death. If she died childless, her dowry reverted to her family, that is her father if he was alive, otherwise her brothers. If she had sons, they would share it equally. Her dowry was inheritable only by her own children, not by her husband's children or by other women. In archaic Greece ,

8073-467: The dowry in one lump sum. The practice of dowry in the Indian subcontinent is a controversial subject. Some scholars believe dowry was practiced in antiquity, but some do not. Historical eyewitness reports (discussed below) suggest dowry in ancient India was insignificant, and daughters had inheritance rights, which by custom were exercised at the time of her marriage. Documentary evidence suggests that at

8190-423: The dowry originally consisted of clothing for the bride, linen, and bedding. Linen became less common, a fact blamed on poor flax harvest and girls being poor spinners, but emphasis was added to the finest of the clothing, and a money dowry was sometimes added, particularly if the bride was regarded as having some fault. Prospective in-laws, usually concerned mostly with her working ability, grew more concerned about

8307-430: The dowry. According to Herodotus , auctions of maidens were held annually. The auctions began with the woman the auctioneer considered to be the most beautiful and progressed to the least. It was considered illegal to allow a daughter to be sold outside of the auction method. Attractive maidens were offered in an auction to determine the bride price to be paid by a swain, while in the case of maidens lacking attractivity

8424-790: The earliest family known to have split off from it, the extinct Anatolian languages (see below ). Modern examples include Algonquian languages such as Ojibwe . Here a masculine–feminine–neuter system previously existed, but the distinction between masculine and feminine genders has been lost in nouns (they have merged into what is called common gender ), though not in pronouns that can operate under natural gender. Thus nouns denoting people are usually of common gender, whereas other nouns may be of either gender. Examples include Danish and Swedish (see Gender in Danish and Swedish ), and to some extent Dutch (see Gender in Dutch grammar ). The dialect of

8541-481: The effect for German speakers has also led to a proposal that the effect is restricted to languages with a two-gender system, possibly because such languages are inclined towards a greater correspondence between grammatical and natural gender. Another kind of test asks people to describe a noun, and attempts to measure whether it takes on gender-specific connotations depending on the speaker's native language. For example, one study found that German speakers describing

8658-405: The emancipation of Narāmtum, the adopted daughter of another nadītu , Ina-libbi-eršet. Adoptive motherhood among nadītu was seemingly primarily an economic institution, and the foster daughters were typically expected to provide their mothers with sustenance in exchange for becoming their heiresses, and in some cases they could be married off in order to acquire bride price ( terḫatum ). Adopting

8775-532: The existence of words that denote male and female, such as the difference between "aunt" and "uncle" is not enough to constitute a gender system. In other languages, the division into genders usually correlates to some degree, at least for a certain set of nouns, such as those denoting humans, with some property or properties of the things that particular nouns denote. Such properties include animacy or inanimacy, " humanness " or non-humanness, and biological sex . However, in most languages, this semantic division

8892-434: The father or father of the bride's father, in consideration of marriage, but on the condition that it should be restored back to the dowry giver, on the death of the wife. The bride's family were expected to give a dowry when a girl married, and in proportion to their means. It was customary for the bride's family and friends to pay promised dowries in installments over three years, and some Romans won great praise by delivering

9009-591: The groom's family gave the bridewealth, it tended to be given back as dowry to the bride as part of her conjugal estate. Michael Witzel , in contrast, claims the ancient Indian literature suggests dowry practices were not significant during the Vedic period. Witzel also notes that women in ancient India had property inheritance rights either by appointment or when they had no brothers. The findings of MacDonell and Keith are similar to Witzel, and differ from Tambiah; they cite ancient Indian literature suggesting bridewealth

9126-436: The groom, or his family. Similarly, dower is the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control. Traditionalist dowry is an ancient custom that is mentioned in some of the earliest writings, and its existence may well predate records of it. Dowries continue to be expected and demanded as a condition to accept a marriage proposal in some parts of

9243-417: The growth of Marduk's importance through the Old Babylonian period , and the establishment of his cult in various cities. In contrast with their peers dedicated to Shamash , the nadītu in his service did not live in seclusion and were permitted to marry, though they similarly were not allowed to have children. However, they could adopt the children of a secondary wife or servant of their husband. Their status

9360-515: The inflections in a language relate to sex or gender . According to one estimate, gender is used in approximately half of the world's languages . According to one definition: "Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words." Languages with grammatical gender usually have two to four different genders, but some are attested with up to 20. Common gender divisions include masculine and feminine; masculine, feminine, and neuter; or animate and inanimate. Depending on

9477-439: The language and the word, this assignment might bear some relationship with the meaning of the noun (e.g. "woman" is usually feminine), or may be arbitrary. In a few languages, the assignment of any particular noun (i.e., nominal lexeme, that set of noun forms inflectable from a common lemma) to one grammatical gender is solely determined by that noun's meaning, or attributes, like biological sex, humanness, or animacy. However,

9594-466: The law of the Continent, especially the law of the Holy Roman Empire . Thirteenth-century court records are filled with disputes over dowries, and the law became increasingly complex. The English dowry system permitted most noble families to marry off their daughters and thereby gain extended kin and patronage ties. Marriageable daughters were a valuable commodity to ambitious fathers, and

9711-410: The majority of Sub-Saharan African societies that practice "homogenous inheritance" in which property is transmitted only to children of the same sex as the property holder. These latter African societies are characterized by the transmission of the " bride price ", the money, goods or property given by the groom or his family to the parents of the bride (not the bride herself). Goody has demonstrated

9828-764: The merger of masculine and feminine in these languages and dialects can be considered a reversal of the original split in Proto-Indo-European (see below ). Some gender contrasts are referred to as classes ; for some examples, see Noun class . In some of the Slavic languages , for example, within the masculine and sometimes feminine and neuter genders, there is a further division between animate and inanimate nouns—and in Polish , also sometimes between nouns denoting humans and non-humans. (For details, see below .) A human–non-human (or "rational–non-rational") distinction

9945-438: The noun itself, but can also be marked on other constituents in a noun phrase or sentence. If the noun is explicitly marked, both trigger and target may feature similar alternations. As an example, we consider Spanish , a language with two gender categories: "natural" vs "grammatical". "Natural" gender can be masculine or feminine, while "grammatical" gender can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. This third, or "neuter" gender

10062-1022: The noun itself, but will also always be marked on other constituents in a noun phrase or sentence. If the noun is explicitly marked, both trigger and target may feature similar alternations. Three possible functions of grammatical gender include: Moreover, grammatical gender may serve to distinguish homophones. It is a quite common phenomenon in language development for two phonemes to merge, thereby making etymologically distinct words sound alike. In languages with gender distinction, however, these word pairs may still be distinguishable by their gender. For example, French pot ("pot") and peau ("skin") are homophones /po/ , but disagree in gender: le pot vs. la peau . Common systems of gender contrast include: Nouns that denote specifically male persons (or animals) are normally of masculine gender; those that denote specifically female persons (or animals) are normally of feminine gender; and nouns that denote something that does not have any sex, or do not specify

10179-455: The noun, and sometimes a noun can be modified to produce (for example) masculine and feminine words of similar meaning. See § Form-based morphological criteria , below. Agreement , or concord, is a grammatical process in which certain words change their form so that values of certain grammatical categories match those of related words. Gender is one of the categories which frequently require agreement. In this case, nouns may be considered

10296-604: The noun. They are not regularly used in English or other European languages, although they parallel the use of words such as piece(s) and head in phrases like "three pieces of paper" or "thirty head of cattle". They are a prominent feature of East Asian languages , where it is common for all nouns to require a classifier when being quantified—for example, the equivalent of "three people" is often "three classifier people". A more general type of classifier ( classifier handshapes ) can be found in sign languages . Classifiers can be considered similar to genders or noun classes, in that

10413-563: The old Norwegian capital Bergen also uses common gender and neuter exclusively. The common gender in Bergen and in Danish is inflected with the same articles and suffixes as the masculine gender in Norwegian Bokmål . This makes some obviously feminine noun phrases like "a cute girl", "the well milking cow" or "the pregnant mares" sound strange to most Norwegian ears when spoken by Danes and people from Bergen since they are inflected in

10530-523: The oldest available records, such as the Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon , the dowry is described as an already-existing custom. Daughters did not normally inherit any of her father's estate. Instead, with marriage, the bride got a dowry from her parents, which was intended to offer her as much lifetime security as her family could afford. In Babylonia, both bride price and dowry auctions were practiced. However, bride price almost always became part of

10647-475: The owner's death ( mortis causa ). (This is a completely different definition of dowry to that given at the top of the article, which demonstrates how the term ‘dowry’ causes confusion.) A dowry (or dower ) establishes a type of conjugal fund, the nature of which may vary widely. This fund may provide an element of financial security in widowhood or against a negligent husband, and may eventually go to provide for her children. Dowries may also go toward establishing

10764-491: The parents die, and the joint family partitions, this jointly held wealth was then divided among the married sons, such that ultimately, the bride's dowry given to the joint family returned to her and her husband as their "conjugal fund." Schlegel and Eloul expanded on Goody's model through further statistical analysis of the Ethnographic atlas. They argue that a major factor in determining the type of marriage transaction

10881-463: The possibility of subjects' "using grammatical gender as a strategy for performing the task", and the fact that even for inanimate objects the gender of nouns is not always random. For example, in Spanish, female gender is often attributed to objects that are "used by women, natural, round, or light" and male gender to objects "used by men, artificial, angular, or heavy." Apparent failures to reproduce

10998-425: The property within the nuclear family. Close family are the preferred marriage partners so as to keep property within the group. There is a scholarly debate on Goody's theory. Sylvia Yanagisko argues, for example, that there are a number of societies including parts of Japan, Southern Italy, and China, that do not support Goody's claim that dowry is a form of female inheritance of male property. She notes that Goody's

11115-497: The real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called gender . The values present in a given language, of which there are usually two or three, are called the genders of that language. Whereas some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", others use different definitions for each. Many authors prefer "noun classes" when none of

11232-458: The root of paraphernalia ) and is referred to as paraphernal property or extra-dotal property . A dowry may also have served as a form of protection for the wife against the possibility of ill treatment by her husband and his family, providing an incentive for the husband not to harm his wife. This would apply in cultures where a dowry was expected to be returned to the bride's family if she died soon after marrying. In contemporary Greece, dowry

11349-566: The same regulations. Attestations of nadītu dedicated to the god Marduk , consistently designated as lukur amar-utu ká-dingir-ra , " nadītu of Marduk of Babylon", are known from between the times of Apil-Sin and Samsu-Ditana . In contrast with these in service of most gods who possessed such devotees, they resided in various locations, including not only his cult center, Babylon, but also Damrum, Dilbat , Isin , Kish, Lagaba , Larsa , Nippur, Sippar, Sippar-Amnanum , Suhu and Ṣupur-Šubula . The wide range of attestations presumably reflects

11466-406: The service of Shamash. A purported reference to a nadītu of Ninsianna on a seal from Uruk from the reign of Rîm-Anum is most likely a misreading, as this individual bears the masculine name Bēl-Anum, which alongside the reexamination of the remaining traces of the title lead Andrea Seri to conclude that the office meant was that of gudu 4 , Akkadian pašīšum , "anointed one", known to be

11583-412: The seventeenth century BCE the economic position of the entire class declined. Their number most likely remained similar as in earlier times, but in contrast with early sources, which typically dealt with the affairs of a relatively small number of wealthy members of their community, each documented in a large number of texts, most of the references pertain to less affluent women, typically mentioned only in

11700-577: The sex of their referent, have come to belong to one or other of the genders, in a way that may appear arbitrary. Examples of languages with such a system include most of the modern Romance languages , the Baltic languages , the Celtic languages , some Indo-Aryan languages (e.g., Hindi ), and the Afroasiatic languages . This is similar to systems with a masculine–feminine contrast, except that there

11817-480: The singular, the article is: el (masculine), and la (feminine). Thus, in "natural gender", nouns referring to sexed beings who are male beings carry the masculine article, and female beings the feminine article (agreement). el the. MASC . SG abuelo grandfather el abuelo the.MASC.SG grandfather "the grandfather" la the. FEM . SG abuela grandmother la abuela the.FEM.SG grandmother Dowry A dowry

11934-408: The temple of Shamash . They were closely associated with this god and Aya , a goddess regarded as his wife. Their devotion to these deities is well attested in greeting formulas in letters. It is also possible that some of the seals with depictions of Shamash and Aya discovered during excavations in Sippar originally belonged to nadītu . It is presumed that around 200 nadītu resided in houses in

12051-456: The third millennium BCE had a comparable role in society. Most likely, this class only developed in the Old Babylonian period due to social and economic changes. The best documented community of nadītu lived in Sippar . It is first mentioned around the year 1880 BCE, during the reign of Sumu-la-El . It resided in a so-called gagû , " cloister ", which was a quarter of the city located close to

12168-426: The usual practice was to give a bride price ( hédnon ( ἕδνον )). Dowries ( pherné ( φερνή )) were exchanged by the later classical period (5th century B.C). A husband had certain property rights in his wife's dowry. In addition, the wife might bring to the marriage property of her own, which was not included in the dowry and which was, as a result, hers alone. This property was "beyond the dowry" (Greek parapherna ,

12285-533: The victor in wrestling or boxing or running or someone who excels in any other manly exercise. Arrian, Indika in Megasthenes and Arrian, 3rd century BC The two sources suggest dowry was absent, or infrequent enough to be noticed by Arrian. About 1200 years after Arrian's visit, another eyewitness scholar visited India named Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī , also known as Al-Biruni, or Alberonius in Latin. Al-Biruni

12402-460: The way in which the noun inflects for number and case . For example, a language like Latin , German or Russian has a number of different declension patterns, and which pattern a particular noun follows may be highly correlated with its gender. For some instances of this, see Latin declension . A concrete example is provided by the German word See , which has two possible genders: when it

12519-444: The work is done by women. These are the societies that give brideprice . Boserup further associates shifting horticulture with the practice of polygamy , and hence bridewealth is paid as a compensation to her family for the loss of her labour. In plough agriculture farming is largely men's work; this is where dowry is given. In contrast, plough agriculture is associated with private property and marriage tends to be monogamous, to keep

12636-455: The world, mainly in parts of Asia . The custom of dowry is most common in strongly patrilineal cultures that expect women to reside with or near their husband's family ( patrilocality ). Dowries have long histories in Europe , South Asia , Africa , and other parts of the world. A dowry is the transfer of parental property to a daughter at her marriage (i.e. "inter vivos") rather than at

12753-439: Was a form of inheritance to daughters. In traditional China, the property owned by a family, if any, was earmarked for equal division or inheritance by sons only. Dowry was the only way assets were transferred to a daughter. It included immovable property such as land, and movable property like jewelry and fine clothing. The dowry she brought with her was typically sequestered from the property of her husband and other male members in

12870-414: Was a sister of Hammurabi . However, there is no evidence that women from royal families were regarded as higher-ranked members of the community. Up to three daughters of a single family could become nadītu . There is no evidence that any nadītu in the service of Shamash were married. As argued by Tonia Sharlach, they were effectively regarded as married into the family of the deity they served, and brought

12987-466: Was an Islamic era Persian scholar who went and lived in India for 16 years from 1017 CE. He translated many Indian texts into Arabic, as well as wrote a memoir on Indian culture and life he observed. Al-Biruni claimed, The implements of the wedding rejoicings are brought forward. No gift (dower or dowry) is settled between them. The man gives only a present to the wife, as he thinks fit, and a marriage gift in advance, which he has no right to claim back, but

13104-486: Was considered reprehensible and forbidden by Manu and other ancient Indian scribes. Lochtefeld suggests that religious duties listed by Manu and others, such as 'the bride be richly adorned to celebrate marriage' were ceremonial dress and jewelry along with gifts that were her property, not property demanded by or meant for the groom; Lochtefeld further notes that bridal adornment is not currently considered as dowry in most people's mind. The above analysis by various scholars

13221-455: Was paid even in brahma- and daiva-types of marriage associated with the Brahmanic (priestly) upper caste. Dowry was not infrequent, when the girl suffered from some bodily defect. Property rights for women increased in ancient India, suggest MacDonell and Keith, over the Epics era (200 BC – 700 AD). Kane claims ancient literature suggests bridewealth was paid only in the asura-type of marriage that

13338-541: Was regulated by the Code of Hammurabi , in which multiple paragraphs are dedicated to regulations pertaining to their marriages, presumably due to lack of applicable customary laws in areas in which they are attested due to the expansion of the Babylonian state. Lucile Barberon speculates that marrying a nadītu of Marduk might have been perceived as a display of willingness to integrate into Babylonian culture promoted by

13455-453: Was removed from family law through legal reforms in 1983. The Romans practiced dowry ( dos ). The dowry was property transferred by the bride, or on her behalf by anyone else, to the groom or groom's father, at their marriage. Dowry was a very common institution in Roman times, and it began out of a desire to get the bride's family to contribute a share of the costs involved in setting up

13572-405: Was restricted to the lower castes, who were not allowed to give dowry. He cites two studies from the early 20th century with data to suggest that this pattern of dowry in upper castes and bridewealth in lower castes persisted through the first half of the 20th century. However, it is more likely that marriages involved both reciprocal gifts between the two families, claims Tambiah, so that insofar as

13689-443: Was sometimes called wreath money , or the breach of promise . Providing dowries for poor women was regarded as a form of charity by wealthier parishioners. The custom of Christmas stockings springs from a legend of St Nicholas , in which he threw gold in the stockings of three poor sisters, thus providing for their dowries. St. Elizabeth of Portugal and St. Martin de Porres were particularly noted for providing such dowries, and

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