Dowry Payments and the Irish Case

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2107326
AutoresR Breen (0000-0002-9718-0743, Economic and Social Research Institute, autor de correspondencia)
Año1984
Volumen26
Número2
Páginas280-296
Fecha de publicación1984-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500010902
OpenAlexW2170332324
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas17

In this essay I propose to examine an hypothesis about dowry payments in the light of certain evidence from Ireland. The sources of this evidence are, first, my own data collected during fieldwork in the small community of Beaufort, County Kerry, Ireland, and, second, the work of writers who have studied the question of dowry payment in Ireland, notably Conrad M. Arensberg, Solon T. Kimball, and K. H. Connell. The intent here is to draw attention to some of the deficiencies in Jack Goody's definition and discussion of dowry payments, and to offer alternatives to them. In particular I shall argue that Goody's discussion of dowry is centrally flawed by a discrepancy between the generality of the variables he uses to explain the geographical distribution of the practice, and the specificity of his definition of it. It is the unwarranted detail involved in the latter that leads him to obscure certain crucial variations within dowry systems more broadly defined, and to confuse the issue of the relationship between dowry and bride wealth

Dowry · Economics · Genealogy · Generality · Geography · Irish · Management · Payment · Political science · Positive economics · Sociology · Finance · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy