Certainly in Elbashï at least, the trousseau was systematically evaluated item by item against the bride price, leaving entertainment and other expenses aside. Yet in immediate terms, the claim must be false. Part of the trousseau is collected at home over a long period, some of it actually made by the girl herself, and these items are said always to be priced artificially high in the bride price negotiations. Part of the bride price must therefore represent a good recompense for work done in the past by the women of the household. On one occasion, a group of men admitted this in argument.
Bride price procedures varied within quite short distances. Not only did Sakaltutan differ in some details from Elbashï, but the villages to the west, nearer Kayseri, like Kayseri itself, had altogether different customs. Here, in place of a bride price paid in cash to the father, the father of the groom supplies the girl with gold ornaments of an agreed value. But these remain the girl's property, and return with her to her new husband. It is even possible, I was told, to borrow these, to give them to the bride, to recover them from her after the wedding, and then to restore them to their owner. The cost of trousseau supplied by the bride's father is not in this system covered by payment made by the groom's kin, and I was told that the marriage of a number of daughters might well ruin a man.
The amount asked for a girl varies greatly from marriage to marriage and from village to village, and since I949 it has been rising steadily. This rise is largely due to inflation, but the evidence I have suggests that the rise is steeper than the general rise in prices. The rise in real incomes has enabled the villagers to spend more on weddings, trousseau and bride price. In 1949-50 in Sakaltutan the normal amount for a respectable family to pay for a bride was about T.L.500. In one case, where a girl was sent an exceptionally long way to a more prosperous area, the price was T.L.750. In 1951 and 1952, in Elbashï, I heard of bride prices of T.L.1,250. In 1954, this same price was given for a girl of Sakaltutan marrying to a village four hours from home, while in 1955,