Bloodmoney and brideprice have no merit : marriage, manipulation, and the transmission of resources in a S. Tunisian village

Abstract

This paper is about the presentation and manipulation of the exchange of goods and services in Southern Tunisian marriages. It is also an attempt to explain the rationality of such presentations by reference to the transmission of property and to domestic politics. Most discussions on marriages among the Arabs have noted that the size of marriage payments are no necessary reliable guide to the social position of the contracting parties (Comaroff, 1980; Peters, 1980) as seems to occur in the European Mediterranean, although ethnographies on Tunisia (e.g. Cuisenier, 1976; Abu Zahra, 1982) are silent on this point. Tapper (1981) has even suggested that direct exchanges and brideprice are 'alternative forms' of marriage, the former egalitarian the latter hierarchical. Even where brideprice is exchanged, 'the complicated system of gifts and countergifts allows of great variations, so that it is extremely difficult for an outsider to know how great are the expenses which a bridegroom in any one case really has for his bride when everything is taken into account' (Granqvist, 1931:126).