Bride-price is a social technology by means of which people negotiate rights in persons, identities, obligations, belonging, property transmission, power, and alliance relations. Bride-price engages people in a complex debt chain. Bride-price has been characterized as the offering of particular valuables and/or money from wife takers to wife givers in order to seal genetricial rights and access to a woman's productive potential. Among various peoples, a condition for a person to be considered a complete, free, and full adult is the performance of bride-price in her/his marriage. However, this institution is also the source of many controversies due to its potential association with commodity exchange. Aware of this risk, people resort to social techniques to inscribe bride-price in the gift regime. The current debate about bride-price is closely articulated with issues around gender, child custody, Christianity and other global religions, polygamy, and divorce.