At one time I was mystified why dowries were paid. A woman got married and her parents gave money and other material possessions to the groom? What was up with that? There had to be some sort of rational explanation for it. One explanation is that the dowry was "seed money" for the groom. Since men have traditionally supported women (since women got pregnant and squeezed out the babies), the dowry was a leg up to get the family established. That made a great deal of sense.
Gary Becker applied economics to dowries and came up with some interesting conclusions. Where there a shortage of men, dowries are paid. Where there is a shortage of women, bride prices are paid.
These days many women are whining there is shortage of "good men." (My standard answer is they are right where you left them - back in your 20's.)
Maristella Botticini and Aloysius Siow, back in early 2002, claimed "the modern disappearance of dowries is due to a change in the environment for producing bridal wealth and not to a change in the relative values of brides versus grooms. Thus brideprices do not have to appear when dowries disappear."
In other words, when women make more money, the dowry disappears. However, these days women make as much (and sometimes more) money than men not because they qualified, but because of Affirmative Action and the fear of lawsuits.
While dowries have disappeared, bride prices have not - to women. That will change, too. And is changing, since so many men have decided it's no longer worth it to get married. They will no longer pay the bride price, which means there is no longer a shortage of women and instead there is a shortage of men. At least, a perceived shortage of certain men.
These changes, of course, have caused major changes in the marriage market, since women are complaining they are educated (actually "schooled") and make a good salary, so where are all the acceptable men? Kicked out of schools and high-paying jobs by government edict, that's where.
Women who don't believe this might want to talk to men. I have seen it happen to my friends and to many men who are just acquaintances.
In other words, there is a shortage of men acceptable to these women. These women (and this is both amusing and tragic) don't have a clue as to what the real problems are. Typically, they blame everything on men, which is one of the major flaws of women.
However, since there are more "schooled" women than men, the logical conclusion is that since there is a shortage of men, the price of men goes up, so women have to pay more to get them. Hence, bring back the dowry.
Of course, this will never happen, no matter how logical it is.
Actually, I'm not serious about this, but it is fun bringing these things up with women, some of whom get completely outraged because it intrudes into their groovy little fantasy worlds and the cognitive dissonance makes their brains blow up.
What really makes them throw seizures is when I tell them they should save up $20,000 or so and use it as a dowry to pay for a husband. I have found that is a really good one.
Instead, all those lazy slackers out there are supposed to crush themselves going to college, then graduate with even more crushing debt, somehow find a high-paying job when they are damned scarce...and when this doesn't happen, it's all their fault.
But it's not. Wages stopped going up in 1973, courtesy of our meddling government and most especially because of the inflationary policies of the completely illegal Federal Reserve Bank. So, unless a man gets a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering, science) or else works his butt off establishing a business, he's pretty much fucked. Unlike women with worthless degrees (teaching, human resources) who get handed high-paying jobs over more-qualified and more competent men.
For that matter, if there is such a shortage of men, men should not ask women out, or pay their way, or any of the other things men traditionally do. Let women do these things.
Of course, that's not going to happen, and I'm not serious about it, anyway. But it is an amusing thought-experiment, and proves (to my satisfaction) that a fair number of women want the advantages of both men and women and none of the responsibilities.
And what are they supposed to get out of all this? Women who aren't worth it, and don't even know it. And when told about it, certainly aren't going to believe it.
What to do? Women can lower their standards (snicker), they can support men (that won't last, because no man wants that, except for the lower-class ones), or men can be paid a lot more than women (which is what again is going to happen in the long run, after everything collapses).
Feminism doesn't need to be slain. Just take away government support from it (that's how it got going in the first place). It'll die a natural death, if you can consider a vampire evaporating in the sunlight a natural death.
In the meantime, women are going to continue in the frustrations, ending up as bitter spinsters with cats or big male dogs, blaming all their problems on men, and never understanding what the problem is.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" 
