Brideservice
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Brideservice has traditionally been portrayed in the anthropological literature as the service rendered to the bride’s family by the bridegroom as a brideprice or part of one (see dowry).
Brideservice and bridewealth models frame anthropological discussions of kinship in many regions of the world, see for instance: Langenbahn 1989; Fricke, Thornton and Dahal 1998; Hagen 1999; Gose 2000; Helliwell 2000; and Jamieson 2003.
Patterns of uxorilocal post-marital residence, as well as the practice of temporary or prolonged brideservice, have been widely reported for Native Amazonia (among others, see Arvelo-Jiménez 1971:104; Dumont 1978:75; Harner 1973:79-80; Hill & Moran 1983:124-25; Holmberg 1969:217; Kracke 1976; Maybury-Lewis 1971:384; 1967:97f; 1979:9; Murphy 1956; Rivière 1984:40f; Renshaw 2002:186ff; Siskind 1977:79-81; Turner 1979:159-60; Whitten & Whitten 1984:209).
Rather than seeing affinity in terms of a "compensation" model whereby individuals are exchanged as objects, Dean’s (1995) research on Amazonian brideservice among the Urarina demonstrates how differentially situated subjects negotiate the politics of marriage. (See Bartholomew Dean "Forbidden fruit: infidelity, affinity and brideservice among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1995 (1)
A famous example of brideservice occurs in the Book of Genesis, when Jacob labors for Laban for fourteen years to win Rachel and Leah.
