name written on 1st page. pages yellowing. no marks on text. cover faded and aged with rub marks, edge chips, corner wear, and sticker shadows on back.

1973 Cambridge University Press paperback. 169 pages. 9" x 6". Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology no. 7.

Bridewealth and dowry have certain obvious similarities in that they both involve the transmission of property at marriage, the usual interpretation suggesting that what distinguishes them is the direction in which the property travels - in the case of bridewealth, from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin, and in the case of dowry, vice versa. The authors of these 1973 papers criticize this interpretation as oversimplified, and analyze the two institutions in the contexts of Africa, with its preponderance of bridewealth, and South Asia, where dowry is the commoner institution. Dr Goody seeks to explain the objective differences of usage in this area between societies in Africa and Eurasia in terms of the basic structure of the societies and in particular the rules governing the inheritance of property, concluding that in general terms dowry differentiates while bridewealth tends to homogenize. In the second paper Dr. Tambiah considers these institutions in India, Ceylon and Burma as two kinds of property transfer art marriage. He gives careful attention to Indian juridical concepts expounded in classical legal treatises, and reviews contemporary ethnography, revealing continuities between past and present. He then relates the concepts annd practices of Ceylon and Burma to those of India in terms of a dominant-variant, center-periphery scheme. In these papers two leading authorities make a wide-ranging review of ideas and materials on bridewealth and dowry. The book, as well as presenting a broad overview of the evidence, suggests interesting new interpretations an insights relating to current discussions.