The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [45]
“Why payment for a woman?” Jondalar asked. “Doesn’t that make her trade goods, like salt or flint or amber?”
“The value of a woman is much more. Bride Price is what a man pays for the privilege of living with a woman. A good Bride Price benefits everyone. It bestows a high status on the woman; tells everyone how highly she is thought of by the man who wants her, and by her own Camp. It honors his Camp, and lets them show they are successful and can afford to pay the price. It gives honor to the woman’s Camp, shows them esteem and respect, and gives them something to compensate for losing her if she leaves, as some young women do, to join a new Camp or to live at the man’s Camp. But most important, it helps them to pay a good Bride Price when one of their men wants a woman, so they can show their wealth.
“Children are born with their mother’s status, so a high Bride Price benefits them. Though the Bride Price is paid in gifts, and some of the gifts are for the couple to start out their life together with, the real value is the status, the high regard, in which a woman is held by her own Camp and by all the other Camps, and the value she bestows on her mate, and her children.”
Ayla was still puzzled, but Jondalar was nodding, beginning to understand. The specific and complex details were not the same, but the broad outlines of kinship relationships and values were not so different from those of his own people “How is a woman’s value known? To set a good Bride Price?” the Zelandonii man asked.
“Bride Price depends on many things. A man will always try to find a woman with the highest status he can afford because when he leaves his mother, he assumes the status of his mate, who is or will be a mother. A woman who has proven her motherhood has a higher value, so women with children are greatly desired. Men will often try to push the value of their prospective mate up because it is to their benefit; two men who are vying for a high-valued woman might combine their resources—if they can get along and she agrees—and push her Bride Price even higher.
“Sometimes one man will join with two women, especially sisters who don’t want to be separated. Then he gets the status of the higher-ranked woman and is looked upon with favor, which gives a certain additional status. He is showing he is able to provide for two women and their future children. Twin girls are thought of as a special blessing, they are seldom separated.”
“When my brother found a woman among the Sharamudoi, he had kinship ties with a woman named Tholie, who was Mamutoi. She once told me she was stolen,’ though she agreed to it,” Jondalar said.
“We trade with the Sharamudoi, but our customs are not the same. Tholie was a woman of high status. Losing her to others meant giving up someone who was not only valuable herself—and they paid a good Bride Price—but who would have taken the value she received from her, mother and given it to her mate and her children, value that eventually would have been exchanged among all the Mamutoi. There was no way to compensate for that. It was lost to us, as though her value was stolen from us. But Tholie was in love, and determined to join with the young Sharamudoi, so to get around it, we allowed her to be ‘stolen.’ ”
“Deegie say Fralie’s mother made Bride Price low,” Ayla said.
The old man shifted position. He could see where her question was leading, and it was not going to be easy to answer. Most people understood their customs intuitively and could not have explained as clearly as Mamut. Many in his position would have been reluctant to explain beliefs that would normally have been cloaked in ambiguous stories, fearing that such a forthright and detailed exposition of cultural values would strip them of their mystery and power. It even made him uncomfortable, but he had already drawn Some conclusions and made some decisions about Ayla. He wanted her to grasp the concepts and understand their customs as quickly as possible.
“A mother can move to the