Bride Wealth

The bride wealth (mahari ) has been rising fairly steeply in recent years. In 1980, I recorded a bride wealth payment of KSh 15,000, or around $1,000 at the rate of exchange as it was then, and in 1985, I recorded another one, this time of KSh 32,000, or $2,000 at the exchange rate at that time. The mahari is used by the bride's family to buy furniture and household goods for the newly married couple. The bride's parents ideally keep none of it (I heard of no cases when they did keep even part) and are expected to (in the cases I could follow, actually did) add money of their own to it in order to buy more and better things for the couple's new household. I have been told that the groom can provide furniture rather than money, but I have not recorded an actual case of this happening.