We actually watched a movie "The Quiet Man," because we will be staying in Cong, where some of it was filmed. 1952, John Ford, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Best Cinematography. It plays on movie stereotypes about romance and the obstacles to it, plus Irish drinking jokes, and music, and priests, scenery, dowries, all delivered in an over-obvious package. I thought it was fun. My wife adored it. Schmaltzy, she declared, mixing her ethnic metaphors quite appropriately, I think. It was an early RomCom. There is an extended fight scene at the end, a horse race, a spirited redhead - what's not to like?
The part about the dowry is puzzling to us, and they even reference that "This isn't America" when John Wayne is dismissive of it. I imagine it is somewhat puzzling even in Ireland now. It is a very American value that the potential of a person is much more a consideration than whatever tiny fortune they bring now. (At least in the books and movies.) To us it would seem like a good deal that he wanted her just for herself, not any monetary interest, and a woman might marry a man with no property or fortune with a similar eye to the future. So say we in a rich country, where fortunes can be made. Less of that in rural Ireland, where a lot of the meager land wealth is just reshuffling the deck. A little money coming in was nothing to be taken lightly, and there were years when survival was enough of an issue that a lot of future potential might be traded for cash on the table.
But I think there was a deeper, social anthropological reason for dowries as well. It signified a woman's family status that she was bringing, which was no small thing, neither financially nor reputationally. That her family had to consent to the giving of it was part of that equation. We're all in this together now. For better or worse means you, and us as well.
It likely signified a woman's potential power within the home as well. A small dowry might leave a girl little better than a servant in a Great Man's house, especially after her beauty had waned. But a more equal pairing meant she could be Mistress of a smaller one. Women had few avenues to power of any sort, and most of that would be centered on the home, where indeed, a woman might rule once you crossed the threshold, as the movie illustrates. This also showed up in the other parts of the dowry that didn't come with Mary Kate because her brother refused permission: her furniture, her spinet, her pewter, as well as her carefully earned and hoarded coins. She felt humiliated not to have them, feeling she was not really a wife. Those of us who can obtain new things easily fail to see the point here. Though I suppose this does live on in my grandmother's china, my mother's silver. In our house it is some Dutch and Swedish things that have come down, and my wife still sleeps in the four-poster she had as a girl. Yet we may be the last or second-to-last generation for such things. China and silver are already a burden rather than a joy.
It was likely not lost on girls that the women who had come with more dowry were treated better overall.
Additional: I wrote about "Whisky Galore" two years ago as well, with a clip.
Well...... that, and it was a pivotal part of the story, after all.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a great movie, in spite of everything that can be said against it. The studio expected it to fail, so they only agreed to it on the condition that John Ford and John Wayne do another cavalry picture first to make up for the expected losses. That film, Rio Grande, is also a classic— but this one ended up being the bigger hit.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good movie.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the economics of it was that in those places and times, the family was the social welfare system. A man who married a woman w/o a dowry might end up supporting her family as well, and the family of a woman who married a man who hadn't proven he could provide might end up supporting a moocher. It would have been important not to add liabilities to the family.