中文摘要
在若干亚洲和非洲国家，相当比例的婚姻是由男方绑架其意欲娶为妻子的女性而促成的。本文运用定量与定性方法，刻画埃塞俄比亚的绑架婚姻习俗。我们首先呈现对埃塞俄比亚甘贝拉地区社区领袖及被绑架女性的深度定性访谈结果，以更深入地理解该习俗在这些社区中的运作方式。这些访谈表明，绑架通常被用于克服女方家庭的拒绝。其次，我们利用人口与健康调查数据以及民族志数据，刻画埃塞俄比亚受此习俗影响的女性与族群特征。最后，我们实证检验关于该习俗持续存在的核心假说，并发现证据与该假说一致，即男性常常利用绑架来提高其在婚姻谈判中的议价能力并降低彩礼支付数额。具体而言，我们证明，干旱——在此情境下作为收入冲击的代理变量——仅对传统上交换彩礼的族群中的女性提高了绑架婚姻发生的概率。
Abstract
A sizable share of marriages in several Asian and African countries are initiated by the man abducting the woman he wishes to wed. In this paper, we use quantitative and qualitative methods to characterize the practice of abduction marriage in Ethiopia. We first present the results from in-depth qualitative interviews with community leaders and abducted women in the Gambella region of Ethiopia to gain a deeper understanding of how the practice functions in these communities. These interviews suggest that abduction is typically used to overcome the refusal of the woman’s family. Second, we use Demographic and Health Survey along with ethnographic data to characterize women and ethnic groups affected by this practice in Ethiopia. Finally, we empirically examine the central hypothesis about the persistence of this practice and find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that men often use abduction to improve bargaining power in marriage negotiations and reduce the size of the bride price payment. Specifically, we demonstrate that droughts—a proxy for income shocks in this setting—increase the probability of abduction marriage only for women from ethnic groups that traditionally exchange a bride price.