Unused strip for December 8, 2022

So I was reading up on dowries and bride prices awhile back... various cultures have very different ideas about who owes who and why. In some cultures, the bride's family is sending along either something to get the family started, or support for the bride. (In some of those cultures, the bride _owns_ the property that comes with her and passes it to her daughters.) In other cultures, the groom's family pays the bride's family to compensate for the loss of her labor... literally buying the bride. So Walky paying is entirely appropriate to the right culture.

Carl Cravens

I used to go to week long belly dance workshops in Manhattan. One evening near the end of the workshop we would go to a restaurant and put on a show for each other. On year there was a Catholic bishop there. He started to pretend to auction us off for sheep and goats. That was a fun evening.

WillowD

If anybody said anything about a dowry, you could point out that Lyle is obviously talking about a bride price, not a dowry. He all but says it exactly!

Borg Lord

Lucy's expression in the final panel is funny either way, but I feel like it's funnier when Walky is going along with it than when he's just bewildered. Like Bagge said, there's two of them now. But that aside, the published version is pretty great.

Daibhid Ceannaideach

There are two of them now, Lucy

Bagge

It's Walky, of COURSE he's got access to McNuggets in less than 5 minutes at any time.

I agree, that's a pretty great deal considering Walky gets Lucy

BBCC

Lyle: Dare you court my kin without a strength nor a foresight to carry McNuggets?!

Coal

"Do you think I'm made of McNuggets? That I carry dozens of them around all the time?"

ValdVin

C'mon Lyle, at least ask for some dipping sauce.

Dean Reilly

Um, actually, it's Frankenstein's dowry

Jasmijn Wellner

The second strip isn't another alternate - it's the final version that was published.

Harold

I like the second unused comic. Forget complicated tribal practices that treat Lucy like property, cartoons are clearly where the action is. Though, to be fair, can Lyle buy Walky pajama jeans? I seem to recall that's also an important consideration.

Some Ed

Oh geez, cow dowry. Now all I can think about is that terrible Johnny Lingo movie.

Wednesday

Inflationary pressure is real.

Coal

Yeah, back in the days here in pre-Sweden it was supposedly dependent on many things, some went to the new family some went to the family that "lost" their child, and some went from the family with the higher status to the lower. For the Upper class this was a veeery complicated negotiation with a lot of moving parts and deliberations. When Sweden was coming around and things started to be written down the marriage contracts could be very elaborated.

Hteph

Some tribe somewhere also had the custom that the bride's fathers can ask for ten cows from the groom. But only after the sixth kid is born. A fair trade, I suppose.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of cultures used whatever the primary agricultural animal was as dowry/brideprice at some point. Cows, horses, camels, oxen, sheep, pigs.... I can see poorer people using chickens, ducks, guineapigs (originally domesticated as a food animal), rabbits, etc.

Angie Penrose

Lyle should have held out for 50 McNuggets. Walky can't respect someone who'd settle for 6.

Dean Argiris

Cows seem to be a common theme here. They got used as a bride gift/price in Denmark about a thousand years ago, too, not sure how long it went on

Simon Magid

You could've just called it a "bride price." :P

Jetstream

ten thousand years dungeon

David Willis

Actually, it can go either way -- it depends on the culture and the time period. Sometimes the wife's family pays a dowry, and sometimes the groom's family pays a brideprice. In at least one African culture (sorry, forget which one I specifically read about) the bride's father did ask for cows as a brideprice, so that's where I thought you were going with the top strip. :)

Angie Penrose

Six Nuggets! Such is the wretched pace of inflation.

Coal

Um, actually, the wife's family provides the dowry

Machalt