Should Men Be Bought?

"With abundant gold are we constrained to buy a husband," lamented Euripedes' Medea in a sigh of woe that is as valid today as it was 2,500 years ago. No fewer than 32 articles of the modern Greek civil code govern and define the antique institution of the dowry --the practice of bestowing a property settlement on a daughter as an inducement to marriage. Now, however, Greece's time-honored system of mandatory dowries is under attack. Legislative pressure for its abolition comes chiefly from the seven women in Greece's 300-member Parliament. A draft law doing away with dowries has been written--but Parliament is less than anxious to consider it. Predictably, it is the male lawmakers who most object to allowing women more latitude in governing their own affairs.

Dowries are as old as the country itself. In rural Greece and its islands, nubile maidens are decked out on feast days in necklaces, bracelets and headdresses of old gold coins as well as silver and heirloom jewelry, the better to lure would-be suitors. In Epirus in northern Greece, a bride goes to her wedding on horseback, carrying jewels in a casket; in Crete, the dowry often follows her on a mule train. In Athens, a monthly newspaper called Arranged Marriage provides a kind of form chart of the financial attractions available in the marketplace of love. (Sample entry: "Woman, 38, with moral principles, dowry of 200,000 drachmas cash and 300 olive trees, wants someone of 45-50 years of age.")

According to Greek law, daughters can even sue fathers who ignore the dowry obligation. The woman retains ownership of her dowry--but the husband has all the rights to its use. In the words of one feminist critic, he "spends, invests, does with the interest as he pleases. The dowry puts the woman on the auction block." On the other hand, it can also provide a beleaguered wife with some measure of leverage in her marriage, since she gets back the original stake in the event of a divorce.

Daughter's Dowry. Reluctance to abolish the dowry is more than a matter of male chauvinist greed. Says Bruce Lansdale, an American sociologist who has lived in Greece for 30 years: "The dowry is just as important as birth and death in Greek family life. For some girls it is a ticket off the farm to the big city. These days, if a farmer saves enough to buy an apartment in the city, it becomes the daughter's dowry and attracts a young engineer, mechanic or construction worker." But for a poor parent with many daughters, it has always been an immense and even ruinous burden. Wails one unfortunate father of five girls on the island of Kalymnos: "Better we save enough money to go to Australia, where they will find a husband."

At various times the Greeks have tried to lift at least part of the burden. In the 1950s the government launched a privately subscribed fund drive to provide dowries for poor girls. Although the latest reform attempt is more sweeping than any other, it is still unlikely to drive dowries out of Greek life in anything but the formal sense. Says Professor Andrew Gazis, chairman of the government committee drafting the antidowry bill: "Customs are deep within our country's soul. There will be no way to stop a father from offering a daughter a gift when she marries. The big difference now is that she will be able to manage her money for herself."

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