Kovács Zsuzsa: Göcsej Village Museum. Exhibition Guide (Zalaegerszeg, 2008)

but normally it was used without one. There are some pens and papers placed on the table because first there would be a sort of marriage contract made, 'móring-levél' about the properties of the future wife and husband. If the suitors and the father of the bride to be could come to an agreement they drank a toast to the health of the young couple and the lucky marriage. For that contract, not only the young man presented his possessions but the young woman's family too. They displayed the dowry (of the girl having been) collected in a tulipwood chest to show how much chattel they provide with the bride. Tulip Chest Little girls, almost from their birth, had their dowry woven, sewed and embroidered by their mothers. They wanted to provide all the necessary textile-ware by the time the girl was to be married. This chest exhibited here was used to keep a dowry 150 years ago. Its inscription says that a girl called Rozália Baksa took it to her new home in 1860. The family kept the chest and, to the best of our knowledge, it stood in the room for 100 years and was always used to keep clothes in.