Varenne: selection of work by Jack Goody

Selections from works by Jack Goody

 

Goody, Jack
1976 Production and reproduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

p. 10-11: Since I define diverging devolution as transmission between holder and heir, whether or not it takes place at death, I include dowry in these operations. Indeed I include not only the 'direct dowry' (the property passed from 'parents' to a daughter on her marriage), I also include the 'indirect dowry', that is property passed by the groom to the bride at marriage.

p. 13: If women are receivers of 'male' property, either by inheritance or else by dowry, then the nature of the marriages they make will be influenced by this fact. Such influence will be particularly strong when the basic means of production, i.e. land in an agricultural society, is included in this inheritance. Where property is transmitted to women in this way, then there will be a strong tendency to control their marriages.

In such a system property may be accountably 'male' but the older women will have strong interest also in this property in so far as the welfare of all their children is ultimately at stake at the time of marriage.

p. 38:

October 26, 1999