Pour une réévaluation anthropologique du « prix de la fiancée ». Le cas du dyāj maharashtrien (Inde)

Résumé Fr

Summary In this paper, I present with a new appraisal of what is known as brideprice/ bridewealth in the vocabulary of marriage prestations — that is, a prestation given by the bridegroom's father to the bride's father at the time of marriage — , by means of an Indian case study. My point is that the term itself blurs the variety of realities encompassed by it, reducing them to sole economics, whereas the Indian example, to mention but one, tells us much more of status matters. Indeed, Indian brideprice first and foremost usually implies low status in the local hierarchy, and is accordingly small {token amount). Now, the Maharashtrian dyij appears very peculiar so far as it used to be most commonly practised among the vast majority of the castes living in the area studied — being moreover associated to a high form of marriage, that of the gift of a virgin — , thus putting the low status theory into question. Furthermore, the said practice seems to have originated from the traditionnally locally dominant aristocratic model. It also involved amounts of wheat and money which by the standards of the time could be considered as large. This brings us back to the question of economic value : if that of the Maharashtrian brideprice is not to be denied, it is nevertheless comparable to that of the dowry given nowadays by the bride's family. Indeed, the practice of brideprice was rather unexpectedly abandoned in the late 1960's, and soon after gave way to that of dowry. Marriage genealogies gathered among the local castes have shown it. How, then, to account for such a dramatic change in the orientation of marriage prestations? A tentative explanation is proposed in the light of Indian modernity, which eventually forces one but to acknowledge once more the primacy of ideologies over economics in most societies.