The dow purse

Chambers traced the old custom of a bridegroom giving his bride a gift of money on marriage, known in England as the dow purse. He wrote that a trace of it was still kept up in Cumberland. There the bridegroom came to church with gold and crown pieces, and at the words with all my worldly goods I thee endow he took up the money, paid the clergyman his fee, and poured the rest into a handkerchief held by the bridesmaid for the bride.