My Mom, Dad, Paul and I kept calling it a dowry. I looked it up. Dowries are "property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage." But the one Paul and my Dad worked out was the opposite - with items being paid to my father. That's actually called a "bride price." Bride price is defined as "a sum of money or quantity of goods given to a bride's family by that of the groom, esp. in tribal societies." It took over a week to work out, with heated negotiations - offers by Paul and counteroffers from my Dad, until finally they agreed. I think it was the "fire ant mound for my father's enemies" that really cinched the deal.
My bride price:
13 Strong Female Goats
6 Two-humped (or Bactrian) Camels that don't spit
1 XL Fire Ant Mound to put in the tents of enemies
The goat futures market went down a bit during the week of negotiations, the original offer starting out at 5 goats and eventually climbing to 13. And there was much discussion as to one-humped (Dromedary) or two-humped (Bactrian) camels, with my father refusing the single-humped, citing that two-humped camels are always better than single-humped. Spit-free camels allowed Paul to save and only pay 6 instead of 8. (As an aside - you have no idea how hard it is to find XL fire ant mounds. S and M are easy - but XL is really tough - not to mention all the fire ant wrangling involved with all those little buggers.)
We've managed to procure several crates for transportation of live animals. This afternoon they'll be promptly shipped to my father, chief of the Greywicke tribe.
