Dowry, trousseau and marriage chests: the economics of marriage

For much of European history marriage was also, and sometimes above all, an economic agreement between families. At the centre of this agreement stood the dowry, the goods the bride brought with her into the new household. Around the dowry grew laws, financial institutions, works of art and domestic customs, such as the trousseau prepared over many years by girls and their mothers.

The Roman dos

In Roman law the dos was a set of goods conferred on the husband by the bride's family or by the bride herself, to help bear the burdens of marriage. The husband administered it, but over time the law introduced growing protections for the woman: if the marriage ended, the dowry had largely to be returned to her. Augustus, through his marriage legislation, also restricted the alienation of dotal land in Italy.

The dowry was thus a guarantee for the wife and a signal of the families' social rank. A substantial dowry made a good match easier, while its absence could exclude a girl from marriage altogether. This logic outlived the ancient world and passed through the Middle Ages, adapting to different legal systems.

Florence and the dowry fund

In communal and Renaissance Italy dowries reached very high sums, to the point of becoming a problem for many families. Florence found an original solution: in 1425 it established the Monte delle doti, a public fund in which fathers could deposit a sum at the birth of a daughter, which after a certain number of years would grow to form her dowry. The system also served to finance the city's public debt.

Charity looked after poor girls. Confraternities and pious foundations raised money to provide dowries for girls without means, an activity considered especially meritorious. The religious model was Saint Nicholas of Myra, who according to legend saved three sisters from an unhappy fate by throwing three bags of gold through their window at night, which served as their dowries.

The chest and the trousseau

The bride's goods were often carried to the new home in large chests, the cassoni nuziali. In fifteenth-century Florence these chests became true works of art, painted with mythological scenes, Roman stories or episodes from literature. The workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni was among the most active in this genre, and many cassone panels are now displayed in museums.

The trousseau was the most personal part of the dowry: sheets, tablecloths, shirts and embroidered linen, often bearing the bride's initials. In many Italian regions girls prepared it for years, and its display or valuation before the families was part of the rites preceding the wedding. Even in recent times the trousseau has remained, in many families, an heirloom handed down from mother to daughter.

In Italy the dowry as a legal institution was abolished by the family law reform of 1975, which prohibited its constitution. The trousseau and the chests survive as keepsakes and museum pieces. Studying them allows us to see the marriages of the past from a concrete perspective, made of agreements, savings and embroidered sheets.