"With abundant gold are we constrained to buy a husband," lamented Euripedes' Medea in a sigh of woe that is as valid today as it was 2,500 years ago. No fewer than 32 articles of the modern Greek civil code govern and define the antique institution of the dowry —the practice of bestowing a property settlement on a daughter as an inducement to marriage. Now, however, Greece's time-honored system of mandatory dowries is under attack. Legislative pressure for its abolition comes chiefly from the seven women in Greece's 300-member Parliament. A draft law doing away with dowries has been...
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