Nuptial marriages are those in which the groom, and often his relatives, make a payment to the bride's family to formalise the marriage. Typically, these payments balance a transfer of rights to the bride's sexuality, labour services, residence and fertility, and were traditionally made in the form of valuables; today, they may consist of money, basic necessities and utensils, as well as luxury goods.

Known as a 'bride price', the practice of exchanging goods from the husband's family to the bride's family at the time of marriage has been practised since ancient times. The Code of Hammurabi details this practice in ancient Mesopotamia, the books of Genesis and Exodus dictate rules for payment from the groom to the father of the bride, and passages from the Iliad and Odyssey suggest that bride payment was a custom in Homeric Greece.
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Currently, the practice of nuptial payment retains cultural importance in several contemporary societies, where it persists not only in rural areas, but also in urban contexts, including middle- and upper-class marriages. 

Photo by Johann Walter Bantz on Unsplash

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The cost of the objects exchanged and the sums of money often required in nuptial exchanges is constantly increasing; this, in the lower classes, can create difficult situations, and some men are no longer able to marry because they do not have the necessary funds. The inflation of nuptial payments and the increasing monetarisation of the practice are often at the root of family debts. In some societies, this can lead young men to take out loans, often equivalent to several years' salary, and, in extreme cases, can lead to stealing to meet the demands of their brides' families.

The practice is still widespread in several Roma groups[1] where, as anthropologist Alexey Pamporov points out, bride price is perceived as "a kind of compensatory payment that is given to the girl's family when she leaves the parental home because of marriage. [...] One of the main social functions of this practice is to [...] guarantee patrilinearity, regardless of the fate of the marriage. [...] In some Roma subgroups, bride price does not simply establish the young woman's place within her new family, [...] but also helps to maintain kinship wealth within the kinship itself. 
In addition:
 This practice often leads to exchanges of brides between two clans that are on the same economic level and thus has a stratifying function in Romani society. In other words, if clan A takes a girl from clan B, sooner or later clan A will try to give a suitable girl to clan B to recover the bride price paid.
 As far as price is concerned, in no Roma group is there an explicit amount of the bride price to be paid, but there may be limits. In fact, price is always a subject of long and complicated bargaining. The factors that determine the price are:
 

1. the bride's appearance;
2. her practical skills;
3. her family's reputation;
4. the wealth and asset status of the family of origin and in-laws; and
5. the level of acquaintance between the two families (distant relatives, friends, neighbours, countrymen and strangers).Last but not least,
6. the economic context.

​Moreover, different Roma groups have different attitudes towards the limits imposed on the amount of the bride price. For instance, although the Kalaydjes consider sums up to EUR 1,000 low, one can find some cases of EUR 25 paid before consensual marriages.
The normal sum in this group is around 2,500 euro, but the highest price I know of is 12,500 euro.
The normal amount in the Kalderash community is about 10,000 euro. The lower limit in this group is about EUR 1,500, but the maximum is EUR 30,000. While the regular limits in the Horahane subgroups are set between 100 and 750 euros. (Pamporov, 2007, pp. 473-474)
The practice of bride price, along with other traditional marriage models, is changing and in fact gradually disappearing. Cheaper civil marriages and attempts at integration into the surrounding society by mostly urban Roma communities have played a significant role in this process. However, bride price still has a fundamental importance in many Roma communities, even in those settled in our Italian context for several generations, and continues to be an integral part of the social fabric of several groups.

Notes

[1] The Roma, more commonly known as Gypsies, are a cross-border ethnic minority living throughout Europe. According to various expert assessments, the size of the Roma population in the world varies between 8 and 10 million, about 70% of whom live in Central and Eastern Europe. The Roma population is not a homogeneous unit. There are several subdivisions, each of which contains numerous other subgroups that differ mainly in the Romani dialects spoken, but also in religious affiliation and traditional crafts. For all these reasons, it is complicated to give a general overview of how the practice of bride price is experienced and interpreted, since it changes not only according to the group to which it belongs, but also according to the context in which the group is established.