A Somaliland dowry was negotiable through intermediaries and paid in lire rather than camels

Evidence

Asha’s father had great expectations and demanded that the young suitor provide twenty camels for his daughter’s dowry. When the friends relayed the message to Osman, he jokingly remarked that his suitcase was too small to carry camels. He told them that all he had was savings of 1,500 lire. Osman implored his future father-in-law to trust him and promised that he would work hard to make his daughter happy and would treat the father with utmost respect. However the friends managed it, the old man settled for 2,000 lire, which a distant relative of Osman’s in Galkayo helped him with. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 157

Categorization

• SHARE: A specific, narratively rich detail about how traditional Somali marriage payment could be negotiated down from twenty camels to 2,000 lire — worth sharing with someone studying Somali social history.