Implications of bride price on domestic violence and reproductive health in Wakiso District, Uganda
Dan K. Kaye, Florence Mirembe, Anna Mia Ekstrom, Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo, Annika Johansson 
Objective: Bride price payment is a gender issue with implications on gender relations in different socio-cultural contexts. It also impacts Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. In a qualitative study on the perceptions of domestic violence in Wakiso district, payment of bride price emerged as one of the key factors associated with domestic violence. The study explored experiences, motivations, meanings, consequences and reproductive health implications of bride price payment in Wakiso district Uganda.
Methods: 10 single-sex focus group discussions and 14 in-depth interviews were conducted in Wakiso and Nangabo sub-counties, Wakiso district from July 2003 through March 2004. Data was analyzed by thematic content analysis, assisted by Easy Text software for data retrieval.
Findings: Participants perceived bride price as indicating that a woman was ‘bought’ into the man’s household, which reduced her household decision-making roles. It limited women’s independence and perpetuated unequal gender power relations, especially regarding health-seeking behaviour.
Conclusion: Bride price payment is a contextual factor that the community in Wakiso District, Uganda, perceived as associated with domestic violence, with serious sexual and reproductive health implications. - atypon-link.com/MMS/doi/abs/10.5555/afhs.2005.5.4.300

Critique on the Bride Price
Dr. Kao-Ly Yang
geocities.com/kaoly_y/archives/CritiqueBridePrice0605.html
The Bride price replaced in its cultural context 
In Hmong wedding, the groom has to pay a price for his bride. This pride is named the “Bride Price”. To name this price, Hmong people use native categories: 1.“Nqe tshoob” (Wedding price), 2. Nqe taub hau (the price of the ‘Bride’s head) or 3. “Nqe mis nqe hno” (the prices of milk and of food)). The bride price is different from the “dowry” that Hmong people called with a specific category “khoom phij cuam”, made of money and material gifts that parents offer to the new couple. One cannot either compare the bride price with the dowry or say the dowry compensates the bride pride. In fact, the symbol of the “bride price” is an intrinsic and fundamental element in the meaning of Hmong wedding. The dowry is just an accessory: it could be erased from the wedding without losing the social meaning of the Hmong wedding or generating social conflict; it doesn’t add more social meaning to any wedding, maybe only the materialistic meaning. As for the bride price, it is the core of the wedding; erasing it will lead to debate because it is the social contract. It is the social objective of the social exchange, the social meaning of any wedding. In term of sum of bride price, it is not a detail; in fact, it is the current preoccupation of all future grooms; theoretically, the sum added to the symbol of the bride price become a burden for marriage because it may reach phenomenal amount from $ 5,000 to $ 50,000 in the United States and from 3,000 euros to 15,000 euros in France in 2005. The use of the two first expressions, “Nqe tshoob” (Wedding price) and Nqe taub hau (the price of the ‘Bride’s head), are permutable even if the first expression “nqe tshoob” seems more appropriate in term of language, however it means the material payment of the bride. As for the third expression “nqe mis nqis hno”, it distinguishes from the “bride price” as a part of the whole price: it is the payment for the nurturing, for milk and food before being able to produce. Each expression may hold a fragment of the meaning of the bride price. In deduction from these expressions, the bride price’s reveals to be a compensation of the bride’s breeding until her marriage. 

Why do Dowry and Bride Price Co-exist? - ideas.repec.org/p/chk/cuhked/_061.html