Questions about Matchmaking, Elopement and Dowries

Reference code: FOL.QUES/54
Level of description: Series
Title: Questions about Matchmaking, Elopement and Dowries
Scope and content: Matchmaking
(a) Is there any tradition of matchmaking in your area?
(b) Who would have been employed as a matchmaker?
(c) Was any name applied to the matchmaker?
(d) How would the matchmaker have been paid?
(e) Would the matchmaker have been employed by the prospective groom, by the prospective bride, or by the parents of either?
(f) Where and under what circumstances would a match have been arranged?
(g) Were ‘made’ matches considered to be successful?
Elopement
(a) Is there any tradition of elopement in your area?
(b) Was any name applied to an eloping couple?
(c) Under what circumstances would an elopement have occurred?
(d) What, if any, steps might have been taken by suspicious parents to prevent any elopement?
(e) Would marriage immediately follow an elopement?
(f) What would have been the public opinion of an elopement which did not end in marriage?
Dowries
(a) Would a bride’s parents be expected to provide a dowry?
(b) How would the amount of a dowry be assessed?
(c) Would deception ever have been practised in assessing or providing a dowry?
(d) Would a dowry ever be provided after an elopement?
(e) Was any name, other than ‘dowry’, used to express the idea?