Answer to Question 1
ANS: It is a transfer of goods or money from the brides family to the groom or to the grooms family.
Answer to Question 2
ANS: Bridewealth functions as: security or insurance for the good treatment of the wife, a mechanism to stabilize marriage by reducing the possibility of divorce, a form of compensation to the brides lineage for the loss of her economic potential and childbearing capacity, a symbol of the union between two kin groups, a mechanism to legitimize traditional marriage, the transference of rights over the children from the mothers family to the fathers family, the acquisition by the husband to rights to sex. Answers will vary.
