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Free keywords:
Bride wealth; Bride price; Dowry; Marriage
Female genital mutilation (FGM); Female circumcision (FGC);
Education; Africa
Abstract:
Female genital mutilation or cutting (FGMC) has profound consequences for an estimated 200 million women
world-wide, yet affected communities often resist efforts to end the practice. Marriage market dynamics have
been proposed as key to this resistance, because where FGMC is normative, parents are motivated to cut their
daughters to improve their marriage prospects. Some economists have also argued that financial gain, through
bride wealth payments, incentivises parents to cut daughter’s at time of marriage. Bride wealth, however, does
not necessarily equal net economic return, confounding efforts to test this assumption. Here we use detailed data
on the financial value of all exchanges at marriage from Ethiopian Arsi Oromo agropastoralists to assess their
association with FGMC. We also explore the idea that parents must replace FGMC with other forms of investment
(e.g., education) when cutting practices are rejected. Multivariate multilevel Bayesian models were run using
data from the first marriages of 358 women to assess the association between FGMC status and education and
marriage-related outcomes: bride wealth payments, dowry costs, and age at marriage. Being cut is associated
with lower dowry costs and earlier age at marriage but does not predict bride wealth paid by the groom’s family.
School attendance is associated with higher bride wealth, particularly for women with four or more years of
education, and with later age at marriage. These findings indicate that bride wealth payments do not maintain
FGMC among the Arsi Oromo. While we find a relative economic loss for parents from FGMC abandonment
through higher value dowry gifts, this may be traded-off against the health benefits to uncut daughters. These
findings point to the emergence of new norms, whereby Arsi Oromo parents reject cutting for their daughters and
prefer their daughters-in-law to be educated.
