Marriage Markets

Last week for our two free days, our whole class got the opportunity to travel to Florence. It was really neat to be able to explore such a beautiful place, and I was truly in awe of some of the things I got to see. One reason why Florence draws such big crowds is for the impressive architectural style and grand design of all the buildings. One of the coolest things I got to see was the Duomo Cathedral. Not only was the sheer size of the structure impressive but also the incredible detail and craftsmanship. You can tell that when these great structures were built, Florence's economy must have been booming, and they didn't mind showing it.

This brings me to our presentation which was on marriage markets and dowries. This is a bit of a leap from my introduction but I think it is interesting to look at how differently things were back in medieval times regarding the economy and where people's priorities were at. So basically back in the early 1400's, if a woman was to be married, her parents would have to pay a man's family to let her marry him, which was called a dowry. All women were expected to provide a dowry and the greater the dowry usually meant the better the husband. These dowry's were not cheap seeing that it would cost an average household 10 years income for a decent dowry. However, the state had in place a program that would allow parents to invest a little bit of money into a dowry fun, accrue interest on that over the years and by the time their daughter was ready to be married they would have a decently sized dowry ready for her. 

Lastly the article talked about the marriage market which was simply enough a competition amongst women for who could get the best partner. There are many things that factor into this however. The most prominent factor has already been discussed which is the size of the dowry. Another important factor was the age and perceived beauty of the daughter. The last thing that was taken into account was the brides ability to preform housework duties, raise children, and possibly work on the farm. If a woman is highly ranked on all these non monetary factors then the dowry will be a lot cheaper. I think these marriage markets give a good idea of how the economy was valued back then and are a very interesting piece of history.