Economics of bride-wealth-effect on sustainable marriage, a blessing or a curse? - The contemporary Southern Ghana context. (4th September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Amoah, Anthony; Okantey, Peter Carlos; Hughes, George; Fayorsey, Clara K.
• Is Part Of: International journal of gender studies in developing societies. Volume 3:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 180
• Page End: 195
• Publication Date: 2019-09-04
• Subjects: bride-wealth -- bride-price -- sustainability -- divorce -- marriage -- Ghana -- Tobit -- OLS; Women in development -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; Sex role -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; Women -- Developing countries -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Women -- Legal status, laws, etc -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; Gender identity -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; 305.4091724
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2052-0352

Abstract

In furtherance of the argument in literature, that a relationship exists between anthropology and economics because of the resource trade-off between families in the African marriage processes, we hypothesise that such payments ( bride-wealth ) may hurt the sustainability of marriage. Using a survey data obtained by administering a structured questionnaire to 247 respondents from Southern Ghana, we used the Tobit econometric technique to show that, some key determinants of bride-wealth in the study area include the bride's personal and family characteristics. In addition, using the ordinary least square, this study found that higher bride-wealth negatively affects the sustainability of marriages. Given that higher bride-wealth is found to hurt the sustainability of marriages, we recommend that a second look at payments of bride-wealth by cultures in Southern Ghana and other developing countries with similar characteristics must be considered. Thus, a call for a re-think of the payment of the high bride-wealth may be now!