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Dowry   /dˈaʊri/   Listen
Dowry

noun
(pl. dowries)
1.
Money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage.  Synonyms: dower, dowery, portion.






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"Dowry" Quotes from Famous Books



... office deposit of Morano is said to have two million francs to its credit, mostly the savings of these humble cultivators, who can discover an astonishing amount of money when it is a question, for example, of providing their daughters with a dowry. The bridal dress alone, a blaze of blue silk and lace and gold embroidery, costs between six hundred and a thousand francs. Altogether, Morano is a rich place, despite its sordid appearance; it is also celebrated as the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... an amorous god "Burn for her beauty. O! thrice blest were I, "If borne through air on lightly-waving wings, "The Cretan monarch's camp I might explore, "And there, my rank and love disclos'd, demand "What dowry he would ask to be my spouse. "My country's towers alone, he should not seek. "Perish the joys of his expected bed, "Ere I through treason gain them! Yet full oft "A moderate victor's clemency affords "Great blessings to the vanquish'd. Doubtless, he "Just warfare wages for ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... startled as he heard such words out of the mouth of Count Peter. He fell on my neck, and again became quite ashamed to have thus forgotten himself. Then he began to doubt, to weigh, and to inquire. He spoke of dowry, security, and the future of his beloved child. I thanked him for reminding me of these things. I told him that I desired to settle down in this neighborhood where I seemed to be beloved, and to lead a care-free life. I begged him to purchase the finest estates that the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... So that the fruit may now be gathered, I (Did chance or my misfortune so dispose?) Am worthiest found; and those broad lands that lie Without the walls which that fair town enclose, — The fishy flat no less than upland dry — Extending twenty miles about that water, He gives me for a dowry, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... you will observe, has lost one eye; and you will presently learn that he plucked it out voluntarily as the price to be paid for his alliance with Fricka, who in return has brought to him as her dowry all the powers of Law. The meadow is on the brink of a ravine, beyond which, towering on distant heights, stands Godhome, a mighty castle, newly built as a house of state for the one-eyed god and his all-ruling wife. Wotan has not yet seen this castle except in ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... would the world confuse and ridicule the fondness of an affection so ill placed!—What would they say when they should hear the nobly born, the rich, and the accomplished monsieur du Plessis, had taken for his wife a maid obscurely defended, and with no other dowry than her virtue!—My very affection for you would, in the general opinion, lose all its merit, and pass for sordid interest:—I should be looked upon as the bane of your glory;—as one whose artifices had ensnared you ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... Moreover Louis XIV had married the eldest daughter of Philip IV, whose only son was a weakly boy. It is true that Maria Theresa, on her marriage, had renounced all claims to the Spanish succession. But a large dowry had been settled upon her, and by the treaty the renunciation was contingent upon its payment. The dowry had not been paid nor was there any prospect of the Spanish treasury being able to find the money. Besides it ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... ghost has risen and stands between us again. I cannot enter an action against the dead, but I swear I am speaking the truth. Do you hear? And as far as your dowry is concerned, that is to say your maternal inheritance, these are the facts: first, your mother through carelessness and foolish speculations ruined your paternal inheritance so completely that I had to give up my business and start this pension. After that, ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but when Richard Coeur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the princess's dowry; and with the other estates of the last independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in 1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Roman Curia were of secondary importance. Prince Cagliari was required to pay to Princess Zboroy—for Blanka retained her rank and title—an annuity of twelve thousand ducats, to give over for her use as a dwelling one wing of the Cagliari palace, and to restore her dowry and jewels. These latter terms were evidently to be credited to Gabriel Zimandy's generalship; for his client might have found herself left with neither home nor annuity. So the lawyer's conversion had met with its ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... man, and could, indeed, have got the best of a fight with any prince of her own age. But the few princes who called at the palace did not come to fight the Princess, and when they heard that the Princess had no dowry except the gifts of the fairies, and also what Malevola's gift had been, they all said they had just looked in as they were passing and that they must be going now, thank ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... his promise to Henry.[193] "You are," he added, "in the greatest danger man was ever in;" the council were calling for his ruin. To appease Henry and enable the King to satisfy his council, Suffolk must induce Francis to intervene in his favour, to pay Henry two hundred thousand crowns as Mary's dowry, and to restore the plate and jewels she had received; the Duke himself was to return the fortune with which Henry had endowed his sister and pay twenty-four thousand pounds in yearly instalments for the expenses of her marriage. Francis proved unexpectedly willing; perhaps his better ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... solicit alms, but is established in such a manner that the ladies who enter it give a dowry in order to maintain the buildings, the sacristy, the chaplain, and to defray the expenses of illness, etc., either by means of a regular and perpetual income, or by some other way which cannot injure ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... also on the ordinary ones which influence mankind. He concludes by observing that providence dealt with the Indians as a prudent father who has an ugly daughter, but makes up for her ugliness by the help of a large dowry. By the ugliness in this case he means the seas to be traversed, the hunger to be endured, and the labours to be undertaken, which he considers no other nation but the Spaniards would have encountered, even with the hope ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... should you, in such a public place, Injure a princess, and a scandal lay Upon my fortunes, famed to be so great, Calling a great part of my dowry in question? ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... day, when the beautiful young Queen, so little accustomed to the restraints and comparative poverty of her northern kingdom, and able to surround herself with the splendour she loved out of her French dowry, rode out in all her bravery up the Canongate, where every outside stair and high window would be crowded with spectators, and through the turreted and battlemented gate to the grim fortress on the crown of the hill, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... near, and the old Queen had to send her daughter into the foreign land, she got together many costly things, furniture and cups and jewels and adornments, both of gold and silver, everything proper for the dowry of a royal Princess, for she loved her daughter dearly. She gave her also a waiting gentlewoman to attend her and to give her into the bridegroom's hands; and they were each to have a horse for the journey, and the Princess's horse was ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

... If you were at all a man of the world, I should not have to explain that in marrying into a noble house I bring my dot, my dowry...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... Lorenzo was called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved. These promises were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) to give back to Florence her liberty. But the probabilities are in favour of Politian's account ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... years which I saw before me must be celebrated by a correspondingly comfortable home. Furniture, household utensils, and all necessaries were obtained on credit, to be paid for by instalment. There was, of course, no question of a dowry, a wedding outfit, or any of the things that are generally considered indispensable to a well-founded establishment. Our witnesses and guests were drawn from the company of actors accidentally brought ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... of a kind which seemed to have interfered from the first with her matrimonial projects. As a young girl, a relation of the Saracinesca, whom she now so bitterly hated, she should have been regarded as marriageable by any of the young Roman nobles, from Valdarno down. But she had only a small dowry, and she was said to be extravagant—two objections then not so easily overcome as now. Moreover, she was considered to be somewhat flighty; and the social jury decided that when she was married, she would be excellent company, but would ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... however, to whom these early advantages have not been given, while the dowry of a quick ear and natural grace has enabled them to "pick up" this social accomplishment, a few hints may ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... between his father and his daughter," said the old man; "besides, if the marriage is annulled, she will be nothing to him. He could soon marry that woman off again with the dowry that I would give her. Everything is changed since he went away. My fortune is much larger.... He will have riches, honor and position. Surely it isn't a little half-caste that ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... of final settlement, and end to all these brabbles, was this, and he insisted on it: "Give me your eldest Princess to wife; let her dowry be your whole claim on Cleve-Julich; I will marry her on that condition, and we shall be friends!" Here evidently is a gentleman that does not want for conceit in himself:—consider too, in Johann Sigismund's opinion, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... his country the terrible disaster of the defeat of Cannae. She had a half-sister, probably older than herself, of the name of Fabia, who was a vestal virgin. She brought her husband, to whom she was married about 78 B.C., a fair dowry, about three thousand five hundred pounds. We have seen how affectionately Cicero writes to her during his exile. She is his darling, his only hope; the mere thought of her makes his eyes overflow with tears. And she seems to have deserved all his praise and affection, exerting herself to ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... [Footnote: D. 25. 7. C. 5, 26.] The wife was entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained her property independent of her husband, when the conventio was abandoned, as it was ultimately. The father gave his daughter, on her marriage, a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which, with its fruits during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the dissolution of marriage the dos reverted to the wife. Divorce existed in all ages ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... service with some farmers in the neighborhood. At fifteen she came to Paris "to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, and remained pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... abounds with curious features, married Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, afterwards the celebrated Madame de Maintenon, who was at that time only sixteen years of age. On his marriage, the notary asked him what dowry he would settle upon his wife? he replied, "Immortality: the names of the wives of kings die with them, but the name of Scarron's wife shall live for ever." He was accustomed to talk to his superiors with great freedom, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various

... the marriage of Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, with the eldest daughter of Veli Pacha, called the Princess of Aulis, because she had for dowry whole villages in that district. Immediately after the announcement of this marriage Ali set on foot a sort of saturnalia, about the details of which there seemed to be as much mystery as if he had been ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... determined on, until he should have had the privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr Merdle; and of ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the views of that eminent gentleman as that his (Mr Dorrit's) daughter would be received on that footing which her station in life and her dowry and expectations warranted him in requiring that she should maintain in what he trusted he might be allowed, without the appearance of being mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World. While saying this, which his character as a gentleman of some ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... would have been unwarrantable, as his earnings were only just sufficient for his needs on the previous footing. He had resolved that his marriage must take place before Christmas; till that event he would draw when necessary upon the girls' little store, and then repay them out of Marian's dowry. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... little dust holes—as though they were trying to get rid of something. An unexpected grunt at the doorway attracted my attention and I saw a pig leering at me from the corners of its half-closed eyes—the very same pig the Free Trader and his wife had chosen to add to their daughter's wedding dowry—then it gave a familiar little nod, as though it recognized me; and I fancied, too, that its ugly chops broke into an insolent smile. What was it thinking about? . . . Was it ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... are poor and have to work for their living I may see them—but not otherwise. Except—" He stopped. The chief exception was a young lady, to whom he had once been introduced for matrimonial purposes. But the dowry had proved inadequate, and ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... chapel of singers and musicians; and the Pope seated, represented as S. Sylvester, with Constantine kneeling at his feet and presenting to him a figure of Rome made of gold in the manner of those that are on the ancient medals, by which Giulio intended to signify the dowry which that Constantine gave to the Roman Church. In this scene Giulio painted many women kneeling there to see that ceremony, who are very beautiful; a beggar asking for alms; a little boy amusing himself by riding on a dog; and the Lancers of the Papal Guard, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... word for it, you'll find a lot of things you care for in Bristol, and I tell you, if I were you, I should write to Madam Lambert at once. You can send it by the carrier, tied up in brown paper. He baits his horse in Corn Street, close to Lambert's office, and he'll take it direct to Dowry Square. You'll get heaps of things you want. Books—why, bless you, Bristol is a mighty learned place. The folks there do nothing else than write histories, and read till they are blind. You'll get a lot of things there, and so you'll say when you ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... with weakness; Reverence, thenceforth, with pity linked, reveals To her the pathos of the life of man, A thing divine, and yet at every pore Bleeding from crowned brows. A heart thus large Hath room for many sorrows. What of that? Its sorrow is its dowry's noblest part. She bears it not alone. Such griefs, so shared— Sickness, and fear, and vigils lone and long, Waken her heart to love sublimer far Than ecstasies of youth could comprehend; Lift her perchance to heights serene as those The Ascetic treadeth.' 'I would be that wife!' Thus cried the ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... insipid little chit. Is that what you mean? Having no fortune she can't hope to marry as they marry here; so that Isabel will have to furnish her either with a maintenance or with a dowry." ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... the household is very strictly run. Our mistress, owing to her strict life and her piety, looks after that very carefully. Now just take this: she herself marries off the protegees and housemaids whom she likes. If a man pleases her, she marries the girl off to him, and even gives her a dowry, not a big one—needless to say. There are always two or three protegees on the place. The mistress takes a little girl from some one or other and brings her up; and when she is seventeen or eighteen years old, then, without any talk, she marries her off to some ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... passionate for a married Venus; in this discreet kind of coupling, the appetite is not usually so wanton, but more grave and dull. Love hates that people should hold of any but itself, and goes but faintly to work in familiarities derived from any other title, as marriage is: alliance, dowry, therein sway by reason, as much or more than grace and beauty. Men do not marry for themselves, let them say what they will; they marry as much or more for their posterity and family; the custom and interest of marriage concern our race much ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... still to matin prayers and noon, Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace. She had no armlets and no head-tires then, No purfled dames, no zone, that caught the eye More than the person did. Time was not yet, When at his daughter's birth the sire grew pale. For fear the age and dowry should exceed On each side just proportion. House was none Void of its family; nor yet had come Hardanapalus, to exhibit feats Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet O'er our suburban turret rose; as much To be surpass in fall, as in its rising. I saw Bellincione Berti walk abroad In ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... be of the tribe of Bryneich, {94c} Not the phantom of a man would I have left alive. {94d} I lost a friend, myself being unhurt, As he openly withstood the terror of the parental chief; Magnanimously did he refuse the dowry of his father-in-law; {94e} Such was the son of Cian {95a} from the stone ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... useless for sale or loan. I spent the night in vain consultation with Fairthorn. There seemed not a hope. Next morning came a letter from young Vipont Crooke. It was manly and frank, though somewhat coarse. With the consent of his parents he offered me his sister's hand, and a dowry of L10,000. He hinted, in excuse for his bluntness, that, perhaps from motives of delicacy, if I felt a preference for his sister, I might not deem myself rich enough to propose, and—but it matters not what else he said. You foresee ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of a daughter of joy. The mother, as frequently happens in these cases, dreamed of perfect respectability for her child and kept Christine in the country far away in Paris, meaning to provide a good dowry in due course. At forty-two she had not got the dowry together, nor even begun to get it together, and she was ill. Feckless, dilatory and extravagant, she saw as in a vision her own shortcomings and how they might involve disaster ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... a trifle remaining of their mother's small dowry, invested, as it had been by their father, in certain bridge-stock, which paid dividends of exactly one per cent. This gave the two children molasses on their bread; the elders ate their bread without it. They had a cow, that fed in the paddock,—a cow lineally descended ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... his years well and the hardships had written few lines on his kindly and handsome face. That he was very much charmed with the child, who was really quite mature for her age, was true, though it is thought the friendship of her father and her dowry had some weight. But she adored her heroic lover, although she was to be returned to the convent to finish her education. Then the Sieur made his will and settled a part of the dowry on his bride, and the income of all his other property, his maps and books, "in case of his death in voyages ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... known to them. There were no legacies, no annuities, none of the posthumous bustle with which some of the dead prolong their activities. Trusting her husband, she had left him everything without reserve. She was quite a poor woman—the house had been all her dowry, and the house would come to Charles in time. Her water-colours Mr. Wilcox intended to reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace. How easily she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... behalf did not, however, seem to extend itself in that quarter where, according to the general opinion, it is most efficiently displayed, in labouring, namely, to establish her in life, either by a large dowry or a wealthy marriage. By an old settlement, almost all the landed estates of the Baron went, after his death, to a distant relation; and it was supposed that Miss Bradwardine would remain but slenderly provided for, as the good gentleman's cash matters ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... two things seem irreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the child of genius and every child should be inspired; but now it is not to be predicted of ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... disown, by a formal act, the obligations contracted in his name.[119] Again there was a change. The king lived on, the alarm yielded to the temptations of covetousness. Had he restored Catherine to her father he must have restored with her the portion of her dowry which had been already received; he must have relinquished the prospect of the moiety which had yet to be received. The negotiation was renewed. Henry VII. lived to sign the receipts for the first instalment of the second payment;[120] and on his ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... thoughts feared that Rosie's beauty and charming manner would command riches, and sometimes he dared to think that possibly his talent and fame might command a handsome dowry. Then his mind turned to Lucille. She was taller than Rosie, not so vivacious, but like Rosie enjoyed a happy time. He even ventured at times to say mentally of Lucille that "it is she or none on earth," and then as he recalled the ring given to Rosie, the old love would assert itself and he ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... furnished by the man, being given by his parents. The wife furnished nothing for the marriage, until she had inherited it from her parents. The solemnity of the marriage consisted in nothing more than the agreement between the parents and relatives of the contracting parties, the payment of the dowry agreed upon to the father of the bride, [148] and the assembling at the wife's parents' house of all the relatives to eat and drink until they would fall down. At night the man took the woman to his house and into his power, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... holdest still this rod, Whereon are carved the names of every god That rules the fertile earth; but having come Unto King Pelias' well-adorned home, Abide not long, but take the royal maid, And let her dowry in thy wain be laid, Of silver and fine cloth and unmixed gold, For this indeed will Pelias not withhold When he shall see thee like a very god. Then let thy beasts, ruled by this carven rod, Turn round to Pherae; yet must thou abide Before thou comest ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... 2: A wife, who has other property besides her dowry which is for the support of the burdens of marriage, whether that property be gained by her own industry or by any other lawful means, can give alms, out of that property, without asking her husband's permission: yet such alms should be moderate, lest through giving ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... how it is. For instance, at his second visit, after he had received Dounia's consent, in the course of conversation, he declared that before making Dounia's acquaintance, he had made up his mind to marry a girl of good reputation, without dowry and, above all, one who had experienced poverty, because, as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her benefactor. I must add that ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... thousand francs dowry at the very outset, sire; the lovers are disinterested enough; for myself, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... wealth became, on accruing to the marquise, what was then called, in countries where the Roman law prevailed, a 'paraphernal' estate that is to say that, falling in, after marriage? it was not included in the dowry brought by the wife, and that she could dispose freely both of the capital and the income, which might not be administered even by her husband without a power of attorney, and of which she could dispose at pleasure, by donation or by will. And in fact, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... hard for a firm man to bear: but I Have a dear wife, a lady of high birth, Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my father 20 Without a bond or witness to the deed: And children, who inherit her fine senses, The fairest creatures in this breathing world; And she and they reproach me ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... fresh vigour into a concern that was already vigorous, and by the time he was thirty found himself in the receipt of not less than 1500 pounds a year as his share of the profits. Two years later he married a lady about seven years younger than himself, who brought him a handsome dowry. She died in 1805, when her youngest child Alethea was born, and her husband ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... more comfortable partner, the man old enough to have loved before, and to have undergone something of an apprenticeship in devotion. Very pertinent also is his advice to men in the same essay, that kindred tastes are more likely to ensure lasting happiness than a fair face or an acceptable dowry. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... himself the younger Dionysus and insisted on being called so by others. When the Athenians in view of this and his other behavior betrothed Athena to him, he declared he accepted the marriage and he exacted from them a dowry of one hundred myriads. While he was occupied in this way he sent Publius Ventidius before him into Asia. The latter came upon Labienus before his presence was announced and terrified him by the suddenness of his approach ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... He let his displeasure be known at the court of Yakinlu, and very shortly received an embassy of submission. Like Baal, Yakinlu sent a daughter to take her place among the great king's secondary wives, and with her he sent a large sum of money, in the disguise of a dowry.[14175] The tokens of subjection were accepted, and Yakinlu was allowed to continue king of Arvad. When, not long afterwards, he died,[14176] and his ten sons sought the court of Nineveh to prefer their claims to the succession, they were received with favour. Azi-Baal, the eldest, was appointed ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... return from Majorca and the Revolution of February, 1848, the profits of her work had, after the first, enabled her freely to spend the greater part of the year at Nohant, and to provide a substantial dowry for her daughter. But the amassing of wealth suited neither her taste nor her principles. She writes to her poet-protege M. Poncy, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... Margery. She was willing, even eager, and while the matter was still uncertain she wrote him a letter on Valentine's Day, addressing him as "Right reverent and worshipful and my right well-beloved Valentine," to tell him that it was impossible for her father to offer a larger dowry than he had already promised. "If that you could be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground." In his first letter—boldly written, he says, without her knowledge or license—he addresses her simply as "Mistress," and assures her that "I ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... the King of England said should make no difference. All that he asked was the hand of the princess without any dowry. Her personal charms and mental endowments were sufficient to outweigh all the riches in the world; and if her royal father and mother would grant her to King Henry as his bride, he would not ask to receive with her ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Africanus, that he was not rich "for a Roman." We may form some idea of what was considered as riches in the Rome of those days from the fact, that Lucius Paullus with an estate of 60 talents (14,000 pounds) was not reckoned a wealthy senator, and that a dowry—such as each of the daughters of the elder Scipio Africanus received—of 50 talents (12,000 pounds) was regarded as a suitable portion for a maiden of quality, while the estate of the wealthiest Greek of this century was not more ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... considerable asperity. "It can never, no, never be as you desire. We have other designs for Dorothy than that she should marry a soldier of fortune. Her portion," she continued, curling her lips in scorn, "is a half of the whole estate of Haddon, which, you must admit, is no small dowry; and what have you to set against that? Your lands would not maintain yourself alone," and, having delivered herself thus, she cast a triumphant glance upon the young man who ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... a trifle astonished at this answer, and still more at the indefinite something in his manner which seemed to indicate that he expected her to understand, as, indeed, she did. Her only dowry had been an expensive education, and she remembered that the influence of the isle she lived in had in turn fastened on Saxons, Norsemen, Normans, and made them Englishmen. What was more, so far as she had read, those who had gone out South or Westwards had carried that influence ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... mile was historic ground. We were shown the town said to be the Arimathea of the New Testament, and the Crusaders' Tower, one hundred and twenty feet high. Here Samuel was a judge and Israel asked for a king. Then the Hill of Gezer, with ruins of the old city presented to Solomon by Pharaoh as a dowry for his daughter. Now we see Zorah, the birthplace of Samson, where the Ark was held up by the Philistines before they returned it to the Israelites, fearing it would bring a curse on them, and also where he tied burning brands to the foxes' tails ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... precocity; for at the age of fourteen he owned an illegitimate child, and was accused of violence to domestics. In 1563 his family married him to Ersilia, a daughter of the noble Santa Croce house, who brought him a fair dowry. Francesco lived for twenty-one years with this lady, by whom he had twelve children. Upon her death he remained a widower for nine years, and in 1593 he married Lucrezia Petroni, widow of a Roman called Velli. Francesco's conduct during his first marriage was not without ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... to that Brahmana, who led a rigidly austere life, saying, "There is a certain family custom in our race; it hath been founded by my ancestors of a bygone age. And, O most excellent of the sacerdotal caste, be it known to thee that the intending bridegroom must offer a dowry consisting of a thousand fleet steeds, whose colour must be brown and every one of whom must possess a single sable car. But, O Bhrigu's son, a reverend saint like thee cannot be asked to offer the same. Nor can my daughter be refused to a magnanimous saint of thy (exalted) rank." Thereupon ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... moment we sign our lease. I know very well that in the opinion of some people I have overstepped the legal delays, but you see I plead in my own court, and I have granted a dispensation. What I do know is that she brings me as a dowry cheerfulness, which is the health of the soul, and health which is the cheerfulness ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... Povey breathed again. Fan had had more luck than she deserved, for the result might have been simply anything. Her owners forgave her and disposed of these fruits of iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up in the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a grandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and various grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and disillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... your faithful vassal, and as a person who would prefer to lose a thousand lives than to utter one falsehood to his king, that the Filipinas have been worth nothing to me, during the six years of my residence herein; but rather I have lost the twenty thousand pesos which I have spent from the dowry that Dona Magdalena brought me. And had not our Lord been pleased to give me a son (at whose birth she died), she would not have had enough whereby to have returned safely home to her parents. I confess that it must seem to politicians that one does not come ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... Duchesse de Lorraine explained the purport of her visit; which, it is asserted, was to induce her royal niece to redeem the pledge given by her deceased husband that the Dauphin should espouse the Princesse de Lorraine, who would bring as her dowry to the young King the duchies of Lorraine and Bar. Marie was, however, too deeply compromised with Spain as well as with the Pope and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, both of whom were earnest to effect the completion of that alliance, to follow up a policy which could not but have proved ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... exposed, covered with derision, and insulted by triumphant husbands. Such is the fate of Falstaff, with all his wit and knowledge of the world. Such is the fate of Brisac in Fletcher's Elder Brother, and of Ricardo and Ubaldo in Massinger's Picture. Sometimes, as in the Fatal Dowry and Love's Cruelty, the outraged honour of families is repaired by a bloody revenge. If now and then the lover is represented as an accomplished man, and the husband as a person of weak or odious character, this only makes the triumph of female ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was their virtue, and the service done their country. He who had the greatest share of these endowments, chose which girl he liked out of the whole nation. Love, beauty, chastity, virtue, birth, and even wealth itself, were all, in some measure, the dowry of virtue. A nobler and grander recompense, less chargeable to a petty state, and more capable of influencing both sexes, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... have come, both of gold and silver, and of precious stones and pearls, the Cid embraced them and said, My sons, this and all that I have is for you and for your wives, and I will give unto you the noblest and most precious things that ever were given with women for their dowry: for I will give you the half of all that you see here, and the other half I and Doa Ximena will keep so long as we live, and after our death all shall be yours; and my days are now well nigh full. Then the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... Nicholas. "Not so poor as you thought! I can build again, I can build again!" And the creature, laughing hideously, danced with its withered arms spread out before the blaze, lest Jan should seek to rescue Christina's burning dowry ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome

... with an anecdote. Madame Blumenthal is Prussian, and very well born. I remember her mother, an old Westphalian Grafin, with principles marshalled out like Frederick the Great's grenadiers. She was poor, however, and her principles were an insufficient dowry for Anastasia, who was married very young to a vicious Jew, twice her own age. He was supposed to have money, but I am afraid he had less than was nominated in the bond, or else that his pretty young wife spent it very fast. She has been a widow these ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James

... horses, and moves out into the middle of the circle—about which all the lodges of the tribe are arranged—and there the new lodge is unpacked and set up. In front of the lodge are tied, let us say, fifteen horses, the girl's dowry given by her father. Very likely, too, the father has sent over to the young man his own war clothing and arms, a lance, a fine shield, a bow and arrows in otter-skin case, his war bonnet, war shirt, and war leggings ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... of Alexander de Medices Duke of Florence, vpon a gentleman whom he fauoured, who hauing rauished the Daughter of a poore Myller, caused him to mary hir, for the greater honour and celebration whereof, he appoynted hir a rich and honourable Dowry. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... Solongos, i.e., of the Solons. "Bring me tribute, or we must fight," he said; upon which Tsaghan Khakan was frightened, sent him a daughter of Dair Ussun, named Kulan Goa, with a tent decorated with panther skins, and gave him the tribes of Solongos and Bughas as a dowry, upon which he assisted Tsaghan Khakan, so that he brought three provinces of the Solongos under ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... Nudung's bride, that thou thoughtest to win!" he cried. "Let them mate her to-morrow with another man; if he ask the dowry, he can have the like." A faithful Hun had told him that morning, secretly, that the ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... and those that are marriageable have complete knowledge of cookery, accounts, and governments, and washing of clothes, agriculture and the manufacture of garments and all other offices: otherwise they are reckoned infirm-minded. Each girl is given a dowry to which she adds with her own hands. No man molests any woman here on any occasion. They come and go at their pleasure upon their business. There is one thing I should like to see, Mother. I should like to see all the men of India with all their wives ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling

... moving a little away, "if you are to get me what I want. Before you came, I was meditating possible ways of getting it for myself. I wanted it for a melancholy relic—a sort of mausoleum in which all my hopes were buried. Now its purpose is quite different; it is to be my bride's chest and hold the dowry which I shall bring to ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... Paulina, too; Onaelia, yours: This hand (the pledge of my twice broken faith), By you usurp'd, is her Inheritance. My love is turn'd, see, as my fate is turn'd: Thus they to day laugh, yesterday which mourn'd: I pardon thee my death. Let her be sent Backe into Florence with a trebled dowry. Death comes: oh, now I see what late I fear'd; A Contract broke, tho piec'd up ne're so well, Heaven sees, earth suffers, but it ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... wife such as a lover hardly dare hope for in his wildest prayers; rich, well born, chaste, you, Bassus, expend your energies on boys whom you have procured with your wife's dowry; and thus does that penis, purchased for so many thousands, return worn out to its mistress, nor does it stand when she rouses it by soft accents of love, and delicate fingers. Have some sense of shame or let us go into court. This penis is not yours, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... from the suit. But he then forfeited what he had offered. If this really was the result of having taken a dislike to a plain girl, we may suppose that such a maiden might accumulate several bride-prices and so acquire some wealth. This may explain Herodotus's idea that the handsome girls made a dowry for the plain ones. But there is not a shred of evidence for their doing so in the way he suggests. A girl was a virgin ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... my Antioch, my city! Queen of the East! my solace, my delight! The dowry of my sister Cleopatra When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now Won back and made more wonderful by me! I love thee, and I long to be once more Among the players and the dancing women Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes, Thy river ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... young, of emigrating to the oases of the Sahara, which are occupied by the French and traveling Arabs, where they give themselves up to a life of prostitution. After having exercised this life for some years they return to the tribe with a dowry in money, besides an ample supply of clothes and jewelry,—the result of their economy,—which enables them to contract favorable marriages. This practice is so common in this one particular tribe, and so much have they monopolized the profession of courtesan, that the name of the tribe ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... Bearnais thought your aim was to make him quarrel with his wife, that you might not have to pay her dowry." ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... the fifteenth century, James the Third, King of Scotland, married Margaret of Denmark, and the Orcades were given to Scotland as a security for her dowry. The dowry was never paid, and after a lapse of a century and a half Denmark resigned all her Orcadean rights to Scotland. The later union of England and ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... here," the Vampire said. "I own my own farm and am well-to-do and in marrying me your daughter would get a desirable husband. Indeed, I am so well off that I don't have to ask any dowry." ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... husband was to be a compendium of all the virtues, and of all success, not to speak of fabulous wealth. The two elder sisters had agreed that all was to be sacrificed by them, if need be, for Aglaya's sake; her dowry was ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... head so high, he has little gold in his purse, but the black devil of greed is in his heart. So, like the lave of the gallants that drink and gamble and do waur things at the king's court, he has been hunting for some lass that will bring him a tocher (dowry) and a title. For this is what the men of his generation are ever needing. Ye follow me, Jean? This may be news to a country lass wha has not been corrupted among ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... amicably uniting the rival claims, for in a family council it was finally agreed that his daughter Marguerite should marry Count Jean's son and successor, and that the purchase money of the two chateaux, supplied by Count Jean, should constitute her dowry. So was concluded a quarrel of more than sixty years, begun and ended ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... persuasions to his, he failed to alter Mr. Ormskirk's resolution. Sir Ralph and Albert returned from London after staying there for a few days. Sir Robert Gaiton had consented willingly to his daughter's marriage with Albert, and had announced his intention of giving her a dowry greater than that which most nobles could have bestowed on a daughter. The king had expressed very great satisfaction at hearing of the gift Master Van Voorden had bestowed on the young knights, and took great ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... October, you would find the squirrels feasting on them. In old times in England the oaks were valued highly on account of their acorns, and great herds of swine were driven into the forests to feed upon them. In the time of the Saxons a crop of acorns often formed a part of the dowry bestowed upon the Saxon queens, and the king himself would be glad to accept a gift or grant of acorns; and the failure of the crop would be considered as a kind of famine. In those days laws were made to protect the oaks from being felled or injured, and a man who cut down ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... passionate a husband shows himself, the less will a woman dare to employ this expedient; but a husband caught in this snare will never have anything to say to his stern better-half, when the maid, giving evidence of the fault she has committed, is sent into the country with an infant and a dowry. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... lowest expense was calculated at 150,000 livres, to pay only the functionaries and the domestics, the education and the board of the , etc. This does not include the cost of the , the indemnities paid to families, the dowry given with them in marriage, the presents made to them, and the expenses of the illegitimate children: this was enormous in cost, at least 2,000,000 livres a year, and yet I make the lowest estimation. The was kept up for thirty-four years: it cost annually 4 or 5,000,000 livres, and that will ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... French soldiers, who fought side by side with the army of the emperor, Conrad III. On his return, on the alleged ground that Eleanor was too near of kin, he divorced her, and rendered back her dowry (1152). ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... be pretty well obliged to me for my influence. He leaves you two thousand five hundred for your trouble. He leaves Tavy a dowry for his sister ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... all time. Your worthy husband once wanted to buy it of me, when I was in need of money, because of my son's debts. Your husband offered me then sixty thousand dollars and thirty thousand ducats, but I did not consent. I preferred to sell the beautiful fertile property of Alfald, my wife's dowry, but the Mitosin Castle of my ancestors I would not set a price on for my neighbor; my pride would not allow it. Now I have no more pride, I am humbled to the dust. The disgrace which has fallen upon my house has been seen by hundreds, has been talked ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai



Words linked to "Dowry" :   portion, dowery, gift, dower



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