Note 71 — Chapter I · Marriage Laws and Customs.
Reading edition
Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., p. 16.
Shakespeare makes frequent reference to the marriage custom of giving a dowry to the bride, in his various plays. Thus, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” (Act II., Scene I), Boyet, in speaking to the Princess, refers to Aquitaine as “a dowry for a queen;” King John tells Phillip of France, that if his son shall love his daughter, “Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen.” (King John, Act II., Scene I.) Petruchio tells Katherine, in “Taming of the Shrew”: “Pet. Your father hath consented that you shall be my wife; your dowry ’greed on; and will you, nil you, I will marry you.” (Act II., Scene I.) Gloster, in 1’ Henry VI., speaking of the proffer of his daughter to the King, by the Earl of Armagnac, refers to the “large and sumptuous dowry.” (Act V., Scene I.) And the poor Lear, is made to ask the duke of Burgundy, in discarding his daughter, Cordelia: “What, in the least, will you require in present dower with her?” (Act I., Scene I.)
White’s “Law in Shakespeare,” Sec. 66, pp. 95, 97.