Society

The Return of the Dowry

In the olden days, you had to have money if you wanted to marry a woman of higher standing than that of a prostitute or a proletarian. In order to sweeten the deal, the woman’s family provided a dowry. Its purpose was to provide a foundation of the man’s new home. Poorer families would only supply a few household goods. Among the better-off, significant monetary contributions were common. In any case, a dowry would not set up a family for life, obviously. Instead, the low bar to meet was to cover the increased expenses that come with a wedding and starting a household.

Part of the reason behind the dowry was the understanding that marrying a woman came with enormous responsibilities. You find references comparing the life of a husband to that of a slave to his family even in antiquity. All throughout recorded history there were men who thought that marriage was a rotten deal. Bachelors were often societally shunned. Yet, many great men went their own way. In quite a few countries, at quite a few times, a bachelor tax existed. They may also have been other societal constraints. Not much more than a hundred years ago, there were jurisdictions in which a bachelor was not allowed to rent an apartment on his own. Instead, he had to sublet a room in a house or a larger apartment, just so that the supposedly sinful bachelor lifestyle with whores galore and whiskey from dawn to dusk could only be carried out with significantly more effort.

If you did want to get married, your options were a bit more limited than they are nowadays as you had to stay within your social class. Also, the father of the supposed bride had to deem you worthy. If you were worthy, you probably had more than a few options. As the woman could not bring much more to the table than her looks, and would normally not inherit anything due to patrilineality — the firstborn son would get the assets —- a sizable dowry could make all the difference. However, just as the first-born son was preferentially treated and got all the wealth, so was the oldest, or possibly the best-looking daughter instead, in a better position than the rest. If you had four sons and accumulated a modest fortune, you would give it to your first born so that he could increase the wealth. Splitting it five-fold would leave all with a relative pittance. Likewise, chances of marrying off at least one of your daughters well are a lot higher if she comes with a decent dowry; having an insignificant one for all your daughters would, on the other hand, not provide them with much of an advantage in the marriage market.

Fast-forward a few hundred years of social degeneration, er, progress, and we are now at a point where men are checking out in record numbers. Books on the “marriage strike” have been written. Women in their supposed prime years lament that their buff billionaire with the big cock who saved his virginity for her dried up wrinkly cunt just will not show up, even though she so deserves him. That women in their 30s are of little interest to attractive men is obvious: why marry a woman who is, if she is able to get pregnant at all, likely to pump out kids with birth defects if you could instead marry a woman ten years younger who does not come with an added decade of emotional baggage. Yet, even younger women have a problem finding guys who are interested in more than just a pump-and-dump.

It seems that the dynamics in the sexual marketplace are shifting. Women are of course as picky as always, pining for prime caliber men. Of course, plenty of women are completely deluded and think that they deserve a hunk of a man, even though they have thighs wider than the hips of your typical slender Thai girl. They are like a starving homeless bum who is offered a hamburger but who insists on the finest cut of Wagyu beef. Maybe some will wake up. In better families, I believe we will see it happen that the father will get more involved again with regards to the marriage plans of his daughters. Partly, this might be happening already. Believe it or not, but in my Chad days when I was broke but got laid like crazy, I had women from decently well-off families who wanted to me to commit. It seemed they had completely free reign with regards to their partners. If I had been in the shoes of their parents, I certainly would have objected to them dating a guy like me. That was not what transpired. Instead, I had a small number of encounters with fathers and mothers who were keen to demonstrate that they were reasonably well off and that their daughter would therefore not be a burden. A few of my girlfriends back then even wanted me to accept gifts from their parents, like an all-expenses-paid trip. Some of these women even seemed desperate to finally get a guy to commit. To me, though, an invitation to meet her parents or, in some cases, her divorcee mother, only led me to move on.

I would say it is pretty bad out there for women. I know quite a few men in their 30s who are professionally established, and by that I don’t necessarily mean that they are balling, but merely that they are doing quite well for themselves. Almost all of them tell me that women sometimes aggressively chase them. The power dynamics indeed flip. Some guys might even realize that if they wanted to settle down, they could as well get someone a good ten years younger than them. Some guys might even realize that they could bang a string of women in their sexual prime, i.e. from the age of consent to their early 20s. How would you get a guy who has made that realization to commit? If you weren’t a Chad in your 20s, you will have experienced how poorly women can treat men. Sometimes, the very same women who told some blue pilled cuck to get lost while he was still in college may try to hunt him down on social media ten years later. Unfortunately for such women, some guys do learn their lesson. They will thus filter women based on looks and personality.

What will happen if the number of reasonably well-off men who want to commit decreases while the number of women who want to commit remains at the very least constant? In the age of rampant discrimination against men plenty of guys will say, “fuck this,” and go their own way. Some will still want to have a family and children. These men are in their 30s, have a nice place and a reasonably well-paid job. They also know that women can be a financial burden. For instance, what if she has significant student debt? To many guys, this would be a deal-breaker. Some ditz who is six figures in the hole and works at Starbucks has her work cut out for her if she wants to convince any decent guy with her blowjob skills that he should wife her up. If you have worked hard to establish yourself financially, you will not be inclined to wipe out your bank account, and then some, when you could as well get a girl who does not have any debt.

Now, let us think this through further: if you can get one attractive, debt-free girl with a pleasant personality, you may be able to get more than one. If you can hold out a bit longer. Unlike women in their 30s, guys in their 30s can wait for a better deal. Maybe you are even able to marry somewhat well. A desperate father who wants to marry off his daughter may thus be willing to throw in a dowry to make her more appealing to you. Heck, about a decade ago some single mom thought she could get me to commit to her daughter, think serious relationship instead of marriage, by bribing me with an expensive vacation. I turned that down. In ten or twenty years, you may well have the father of the family tell you that he could set you up in a house or apartment if you married his daughter. An acquaintance of mine was made that offer a couple of years ago. Back then I thought this was quite unusual. Yet, give it enough time, and so many men will be turned off by the idea of having a girlfriend, let alone marrying, that such experiences will become more common.


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3 thoughts on “The Return of the Dowry

  1. A dowry wouldn’t do much good in this system. She’s going to take it back in the divorce anyways. Plus extra’s. There’s a small fishing village in the Netherlands. They have a system where both the guy supported by his family. And the girl supported by her family. Both pay 50/50 for the new home when they get married. It’s one of the very few places where people still have christian values. Or they pretend to have them. It’s not a bad system for young couples to start their life. And divorce is also a taboo there. Sadly not a option for outsiders. They only marry people from their own community.

  2. This happened to a coworker of mine (mid 20’s). Guy happens to be quite desirable among the ladies. He ended up marrying a girl who was a ‘virgin’ when they got together. The father of said girl gave the guy an expensive truck to drive around and set the girl up with her own house, paid for. She happens to be a pretty attractive blonde too, from a more conservative family.

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