TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2006//
TI  - From bridewealth to dowry?
JO  - Human nature
A1  - Fortunato, Laura
A1  - Holden, Clare
A1  - Mace, Ruth
SP  - 355
EP  - 376
VL  - 17
IS  - 4
N2  - 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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p> 
LA  - en
SN  - 1045-6767
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-006-1000-4
ID  - ref1
ER  -