ABSTRACT
The institution of the dowry as an instrument of wealth transmission in preindustrial societies constituted an important mechanism to accumulate wealth, preserve socioeconomic status, or as a strategy to enjoy upward mobility for families throughout the entire social spectrum. Considering dowry size being roughly proportional to issuer and recipient families’ wealth, understanding related practices and trends can help shed light on the processes of inequality creation and dynamics. This chapter makes two main contributions. First, employing a unique dataset of dowries from early to mid-19th-century Mexico, we compare the distribution of wealth in the dowries to that of wills and show how, in the absence of administrative data, the dowries are a good proxy for wealth inequality in society. Second, the dowry as an institution enhances our understanding of elite reproduction. By comparing the evolution of wealth registered in the dowries through time, we can observe how the amount of wealth allocated in the marriage market changes in response to the economy. Maintaining endogamic practices, the behavior of the elites adjusts to these economic changes, including the increased commercialization of cities and the boom-and-bust cycles of a predominantly extractivist agricultural and mining economy.
