Dowry which is practiced in India is the payment in cash or/and kind by the bride’s family to the bridegroom’ s family along with the giving away of the bride (called Kanyadaan) in Indian marriage. Kanyadanam is an important part of Hindu marital rites. Kanya means daughter, and dana means gift. Dowry first came from upper class families as the wedding gifts from the bride’s family to her to help her family or to the husband for his needs. Well after this started, Dowry evolved into a type of insurance that was offered along with money for the wedding. Dowry started in ancient times as varadakshina and still goes on today. The problem is that it has escalated to a very deadly practice, In Delhi, a woman is burned to death almost every twelve hours. The Dowry practice is linked to a historically sexist country and is an overall result of this sexism.

“It is the woman’s family’s duty to marry their daughter off and provide her with a dowry in order to attract a suitable man”(women 1). The men rely on the women to offer up a sum of money and if they do not make a certain amount then they are abused or even killed in some cases. This is surely some form of sexism seeing that this sum of money is offered to make the man want to take their daughter because at a certain age they are know longer wanted. The problem started in the early 1920’s and escalated each day more and more into a vicious way of living. In India women are covered up and are not aloud to look men in their eyes unless they are told they can by their husband, these rules have been set since the beginning of this culture. This background of sexism is just the foundation that built Dowry death, so there is no doubt that sexism plays a large contribution to a lot of the Dowry ways, if there were no sexism then dowry wouldn’t exist and there wouldn’t be any victims or offenders. Now there are know longer worst offenders, there are just offenders in this situation because of the amounts of deaths as a result of this but there are documented articles of especially serious cases.

One specific case happened to a woman whose name could not be disclosed, her husband received the right amount of dowry and demanded more as the relationship grew more serious, it was like her family had to pay for him to be with her because he made them pay more than just marriage dowry. She began to explain, “Trouble began when my husband started demanding a dowry of Rs.200, 000 from my father after a year of our marriage”. This is now happening not just at the beginning of the marriage but after in some cases. Dowry has affected people and their health in a huge way since it first started, it raised issues that question their economy and social political rights. In 1994 there were 5199 deaths most of them coming from Uttar Pradesh in India, they were molestation cases, rape by other family members on the grooms side and in some cases even burned to death.

There are no solutions to this problem, the only solution presented was the legalization of the dowry act in 1961 and since then it has gotten worse. This Dowry law in 1961 made things a lot worse so it has not helped India a lot, although the dowry offenders are sometimes brought to justice this is usually only 50% of the time. Other times the women are threatened if they are not killed that if they tell then they tell the police they will be killed, other times they are too scared or the court judges are paid off in the grooms benefit. The legalization law was the only solution and that cant stop dowry deaths or dowry period because of sexism that their culture was brought up on. “Girls ate after the boys, they got the second best pick of the fruit, and they got the worst beds when the summer house burst with relatives”.

The sexism ran this deep and it ran deep into their history to the point were it was considered out of the ordinary for a women to have an opinion or to be self sufficient along with having no husband, because a male was considered a must, if you had no husband then you had no rights and your voice was not heard. Even in most families if the mother could not conceive a boy then they kept trying and this is the foundation India was built on and keeps evolving from. “But at least our family had girls. My grandmother, in fact, gave birth nine times, and got it “right”-producing a son-only once”(national Geographic.com Magazine 2). Having a sun was considered the child you were suppose to have, having a daughter was simply considered a failed try. They value the men over the women and before the deaths can be stopped the sexism needs time to be snipped at the root. There have been other attempts by female activist in northern India who grew up with rights and with pride and value for themselves but this attempt

Did not work because of the male dominance based society so the only solution is to snip sexism at its root over time and doing that this will give new generations a different view on opposite sexes and over time create a new and more equal India will come to power.

The Dowry practice is linked to a historically sexist country and is an overall result of this sexism. The dowry practice started from sexism, which is the base of the country and a lot of other countries but it seems to have hit India harder because of the extreme that the men took it to. There have been deaths, rapes, beatings and harassments by the groom or his family and most times this happens the bride is forced or threatened not to tell, if she survives.

After a law passed that made dowry illegal there has been no other solutions presented but women support groups and feminist rallies but for the women who are not lucky enough to experience freedom there voices are not heard. If the law takes it into there own hands there is still a 50/50 chance that it won’t go to far and the man will not get convicted for what is done. Nipping sexism at its root over time will show new generations that sexism isn’t right and they will grow up seeing this on T.V so eventually if this is considered sexism or dowry if not both will know longer exist. But as far as action taking place this wont stop the deaths this will just scare the perpetrators, but for actions to take place the people who take the action must realize all are created equal.