Lacking in dowry or without a dowry; describing someone, usually a woman, who has no marriage portion or financial endowment.
From 'dow' (an obsolete word for dowry) plus the suffix '-less' meaning 'without'; reflects historical English when a woman's marriage prospects depended heavily on the money or property she brought to the union.
In medieval and Renaissance Europe, being dowless was genuinely tragic—it meant a woman might never marry at all because families needed that financial exchange! This word reveals how economics and marriage were inseparably tangled for centuries, and dowries weren't just about love but about survival and family wealth.
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