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Abstract
A case study of the payment of brideprice following a marriage in a Zapotec village in Oaxaca, south central Mexico, provides both a contribution to an area of academic inquiry lacking empirical research and an example of how migration, as a concomitant of modernization, may lead us away from static notions of marriage payments. The brideprice paid within the context of the facts surrounding the nuptials and circumstances of the lives of Paola and Javier and their respective families is inconsistent with prevailing anthropological and economic theory regarding the value placed on labor, fertility, and other quantifiable benefits. However, when one considers the bride’s age (a minor), citizenship (American), and current trends in emigration from Mexico to the United States, a new, fluid model for understanding marriage payments in the modern era assists us in understanding the dynamics at play in determining quantum and direction of marriage payments.
Cette étude de cas du prix de la fiancée à la suite d’un mariage dans un village zapotèque en Oaxaca (Mexique du centre sud) nous permet de contribuer à un champ de recherche universitaire qui comporte peu de données empiriques, et d’èvaluer de quelle manière la migration, inséparable de la modernisation, peut bouleverser la stabilité du prix de la fiancée. Le prix de la fiancée payé, au vu de la cérémonie de mariage, des conditions de vie de Paola et Javier, et de leurs familles respectives, ne concorde pas avec les thèses anthropologiques et les théories économiques dominantes, axées sur la valeur du travail, de la fertilité, et autres avantages quantifiables. Cependant, quand on considère l’âge de la mariée (mineure), sa citoyenneté (américaine) et les courants d’immigrations contemporains du Mexique vers les Etats-Unis, on peut identifier un modèle neuf et flexible, qui permet de comprendre les paiements de mariage à l’époque moderne, ainsi que les facteurs pris en compte pour déterminer le prix de la fiancée et ses enjeux.
Acknowledgements
Sincerest thanks to Dr Alanna Cant for her comments on a previous draft. All shortcomings in this essay are the author’s alone.
Notes
1. And in fact payment of brideprice is now virtually non-existent in some Zapotec towns and villages only a few miles from San Marcos Tlapazola.
2. As with brideprice, in some Zapotec towns only a few miles away, arranged marriages are no longer customary.
3. However, deferring the mass and festive celebration is not the norm in San Marcos Tlapazola.
4. That is, except to the extent that male emigration precipitates separation, and divorce on rare occasions, although it is not unheard of for men to ostensibly leave their villages with the plan to send home money on a periodic basis and/or eventually return, and then remarry in the United States without having obtained a divorce.
5. The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, the high school program sponsored by The United States Armed Forces.
6. There is, however, a complex system of giving and receiving known as guelaguetza, which defrays the cost of rite of passage celebrations for the family hosting the particular event.
7. Within the context of advancing a plea for economists and anthropologists to jointly work towards a general study of marriage as a first step towards a unification between their two disciplines, Amyra Grossbard (Citation1978, 33–37) notes the correlation between brideprice and polygyny.
8. Marriage squeezes and marriage payments were also analyzed in economic terms that same year, however, by Grossbard-Shechtman (Citation1993).
9. Dowry typically refers to a transfer payment by the bride’s family to the bride or to the wedded couple. Brideprice and dowry are therefore not necessarily the precise converse of each other (Sudeshna Maitra, Citation2007). Maitra also notes that marriage payments in both directions can occur simultaneously.
10. She had, however, begun to occasionally accompany Javier’s mother and aunt into the fields, to watch as well as learn, and at least therefore feels at least somewhat of a sense of contribution.
11. See Kate H. Choi (Citation2012). Choi found that fertility of Mexican immigrants decreases within and across generations, moving away from pre-migration fertility and converging towards the fertility of white people, and opined that education explains a considerable portion of this fertility decline within and across generations.
12. However, one must be cognizant of a more common trend, wherein Mexican men who have emigrated often choose an American wife, a “prize”, one of the indicia of having gained success in attaining The American Dream.
13. Brideprice has also been related to asymmetry in marital fidelity. In analyzing data from a household survey in Uganda, David Bishai and Shoshana Grossbard (Citation2010) found a robust association between brideprice payment and lower rates of extra-marital liaisons for women, but not for men. And see Ansell (Citation2001).
14. In fact, perhaps marriage payments should be higher than coyote fees since the result is legal as opposed to undocumented status.
15. On the issue of the focus of previous research, however, the earliest publication on the economics of marriage contained in an economics journal dates to 1971 (Bronfenbrenner Citation1971).