“The kallah’s family giving the chasan a dowry is an age old Jewish minhag’
The concept of a dowry is NOT uniquely a yiddeshe minhag and many traditional and tribal societies arrange for the girl’s family to initially provide some gift, whether a sum of money, a few goats and cows, or whatever the local minhag. However, once they are married, why is there any rational basis for the girl’s family to continue supporting them, if the boy is a full time learner? The girl may decide to work but the girl’s family may have other children at home to support (both boys and girls) so it makes no sense to have such a unilateral funding obligation. Again, its what people willingly agree to and such practices may be the local minhag but we should be moving towards the next generation where there are opportunities for bochurim to work part-time so as to provide at least minimal support for their families and also provide better education and job skills to girls so they can support their husbands if they don’t want to work even a few hours a week.