That... she wasn't even expecting. To follow it, she sounds almost defensive. "Yes. It was how I was married."

Granted that's some fifty years ago, but she knows that it's still common. She had given many rupees to whoever so asked her for them for a bride price, or to help a father build a suitable dowry for his daughter. That was just her, in England, for all their modern pretensions about such things, dictated matters much the same.