Two Daughters have Questions for their Father.

Following is an interchange between two daughters and their father.   Obviously the father loves and protects his daughters and the daughters trust that he has their best interest at heart.  The girls, Anna Sophia and Elizabeth, wrote a substantial book in their teens called So Much More.   Their father is Geoffrey Botkin.   Let's listen in and learn:

Daughters: How strict will you be with our suitors on the bride price issue?

Father: That will depend on the suitor.

Daughters: Can you tell our readers a little bit about the biblical bride price?

Father: Well, it takes a history lesson. I'll keep it simple and brief.
Families have always cared for themselves and their communities better than governments can. Before today's inferior days of forced wealth redistribution and impersonal retirement homes, sons and their wives would care for the sons' elderly parents. Sons also carried on the family's legacy. All this was part of duty, passed down through generations. Daughters would marry outside the family and advance their husbands estates. Because daughters didn't have the same responsibilities as sons, they did not formally inherit, but they did receive dowries from loving fathers because daughters were not inferior to sons. Sons received the inheritance, which was the foundation for furthering the family estate and providing for the elderly.

The bride price was usually the amount of a dowry, probably about three years' wages. Noble suitors would give the bride price to the girl's father and the father would give it to the girl as her dowry.

The bride price is tradition benefited every culture that practiced it. Without the tradition, daughters were a financial liability to families and came to be viewed as inferior to sons. Sometimes daughters were murdered at birth. Those who weren't would have been unpopular with brothers because their dowries diminished the inheritances available to sons. Girls with dowries attracted plenty of worthless suitors who wanted the dowry more than the daughter, and the institutions of the family and marriage were weakened.

With the bride price tradition, both institution are strengthened over many generations. Good daughters attract worthy suitors who have proven themselves good, productive servants. By giving the bride price to the girl's father, suitors also prove they understand the father's authority over the daughter and their subordination to God's order and the father's authority. By giving the gift to the daughter,the father signifies his obligations to succeeding generations.

Daughters: Can the bride price be something other than money?

Father: I hope no father reading this turns the bride price tradition into an impossibly legalistic formula with dollars and cents attached to it. There is wisdom in all things endorsed or commanded by God, and we benefit if we discover the principles embedded here. A wealth of virtue may not be reflected in a young man's bank account. David was a poor shepherd boy. But he was rich in faith and courage and brought King Saul the head of Goliath as a bride price. Spiritual capital is a lot more important to me than a young man's bank account, and I'm thankful it is to you, too.