Fortunato, L;
Holden, C;
Mace, R;
(2006)
From bridewealth to dowry? A Bayesian estimation of ancestral states of marriage transfers in Indo-European groups.
HUMAN NATURE-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY BIOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
, 17
(4)
355 - 376.
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Abstract
Significant amounts of wealth have been exchanged as part of marriage settlements throughout history. Although various models have been proposed for interpreting these practices, their development over time has not been investigated systematically. In this paper we use a Bayesian MCMC phylogenetic comparative approach to reconstruct the evolution of two forms of wealth transfers at marriage, dowry and bridewealth, for 51 Indo-European cultural groups. Results indicate that dowry is more likely to have been the ancestral practice, and that a minimum of four changes to bridewealth is necessary to explain the observed distribution of the two states across the cultural groups.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | From bridewealth to dowry? A Bayesian estimation of ancestral states of marriage transfers in Indo-European groups |
| Location: | Berlin, GERMANY |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Keywords: | ancestral states, Bayesian MCMC phylogenetic and comparative methods, bridewealth, dowry, Indo-European, marriage transfers, CHAIN MONTE-CARLO, PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCE, DISCRETE CHARACTERS, TREES, EVOLUTION, CLASSIFICATION, LANGUAGES, SEQUENCE, SUPPORT, AFRICA |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/3902 |
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