In the past, in Cyprus, an engagement required the signing of a dowry agreement. It was the document that listed the assets that the bride’s and groom’s families provided for the new couple. It was not merely a piece of paper; on the contrary, its validity extended to the legal realm, since a breach of the terms agreed upon in the dowry agreement could lead the parties to a dispute before the Ecclesiastical Court.
Dr. Euthymia Lemonati, a philologist who has studied the subject in depth, spoke on the Alpha News program Dr. Euthymia Lemonati, a philologist who has studied the subject in depth.
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As Dr. Lemonati explained, prior to 1935, dowry agreements were handwritten before the exchange of engagement rings, at a gathering of the couple’s parents, the priest or the teacher, and sometimes the godparents or the matchmaker, who also served as witnesses to the agreement.
After 1935—when Leontios was the locum tenens of the ecclesiastical throne—all these unwritten Church rules regarding marriage were codified and published in standardized booklets, each in duplicate. These, as Ms. Lemonati explained, were filled out, with one copy remaining at the church while the second was sent to the Metropolis and kept there. This is one reason why quite a few of these dowry agreements have survived to this day, as she explained. The format of the dowry agreements was standardized.
It is also worth noting that, up until the 1960s, the groom provided the larger portion of the dowry and was responsible for building the new family’s home, as well as for providing for his parents in their old age. After 1960, however, these obligations gradually began to fall on the bride. “From what I’ve studied, Achna is the only place where the custom of the groom building the house has remained,” said Ms. Lemonati.
In the dowry agreements of Paphos, Tsada, and other areas studied by Ms. Lemonati, the house that the groom’s family was obligated to give to the bride was specified.
In Salamiou, however, as she explained, the situation was different, since there both sides were responsible for providing the dowry. In fact, in many cases, dowry agreements in Salamiou (which was a livestock-raising region) included animals, such as sheep and goats, which were usually provided by the groom, and often trees as well. Moreover, as Ms. Lemonati explained, at that time there were separate title deeds for trees that might be located on a field belonging to someone else.
Of the animals, the ox and the donkey were the most valuable, which is why dowry agreements typically included one ox and one donkey. This was quite normal, noted Ms. Lemonati, since with these two animals the family could plow their field, and the donkey served as their means of transportation.
The researcher also mentioned other items she identified in dowry lists from that period, such as a case in Salamiou where a knitting machine was listed as part of the dowry. In some cases, she found sewing machines, some of which even had their brand names listed. As for the groom, he might be given a threshing machine, or if he owned an orchard, he might be granted a certain number of hours of water use to irrigate it.
In the late 1970s, the institution of the dowry began to decline, and in 1980, with the Church’s new statute, it was no longer mandatory to sign a dowry agreement for the priest to bless the engagement. Dowry agreements were officially abolished in 1995, at which time the institution of the dowry was legally abolished.
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