The Practice Of Dowry In India
The effect of dowry in India and in other countries.
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.
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Post Commentolivia
On October 24, 2007 at 10:39 am
while this article did a good job in raising awareness, it was very poorly written. both the terrible writing style and blatant misspellings were all over this essay.
bnm
On October 27, 2008 at 3:31 am
thanks this helped me but go over your spellings
Rakesh Kapur
On January 1, 2009 at 6:14 am
Lots of such provocative and false articles are written by feminists to gather sympathy and such false statistics are being used by NCW to get grants/relief sanctioned from blinded UN and Indian government. No accountability of such funds (Rs.7200 crore) for 2008-2009 is given to anybody. The ministed for WCD has been passing on funds to a certain TV channel for exclusive rights for covering of women issues which of course will contain false cases to create propoganda.
A certain organization got the data from NCRB (national crime record bureau) and exposed the false death numbers of women used by NCW.
If there’s a woman burning every 12 hrs in Delhi (not sure how historical data the author is talking about), then by now (since article is written) at least 1200 women have been burnt to death due to dowry in Delhi alone. I challenge the author hands down to produce these kinds of statistics and I will bow to the whole nation on National Television.
Such false propoganda by literate women (with of course vengeance and vicious intentions) is only to create havoc in the social strata of the society.
Such authors are the perpetrators of the crime and should be hanged in public for abetting in ruining the lives of so many families. Such false statistics have been used to create the 498A law which the Supreme Court of India has agreed to be a draconian law.
Unfortunately, such laws are passed, framed and supported by those women who have not been able to adjust in their husband’s families and have been using these laws only to extract monetary gains from the husband’s society. They’re are helping create a society where women are losing their self respect and they’ve made Indian women as beggars by asking for half of husband’s property even though the woman has spent less than a week with the husband. It’s better for Indian males not to marry Indian women since the price of … is too much. They can anyway sleep with a prostitute and pay for the service and not for the harrasement they get after getting married.
With Regards to all the Unscrupulous women of India alongwith the author.
Rakesh Kapur
On January 1, 2009 at 6:19 am
To the author,
Let us exchange pleasantries and please reply with your authentic data at: nuput98@rediffmail.com.
Let us get the records straight and I am more than willing to meet you to give you the right stats and how the anti-dowry laws are being misused in India only to extract money.
Angry in-law
On February 21, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Please do not view the all women as victims. Many of those educated middle class women are often not that dumb. If they play the part of the helpless facing impending spinsterhood, they often get their brothers’ share of inheritance from the family in order to be paired with the most eligible men. And so the brothers who do not practice the dowry system will choose their brides themselves out of love as love is ‘blind’ and dowry not requested. Also, they have to start the family later due to financial restraints. Some unfortunate brothers even have to sell their spare kidneys or worked as bonded laborers in oil rich economies to pay off their sisters’ dowries.
srinivas
On March 9, 2009 at 9:13 am
dowry is always right because the men is great
latha
On March 9, 2009 at 9:15 am
dowry is worest because bouth s hostehit uii lobve i loce i le i love all boys
Ekta Singh
On May 22, 2009 at 4:28 am
Well, I totally agree with this article. Dowry is still practised in some parts of India. Even if the girl is educated parents give money for thier dowry. It is a shame that the girls are not able to stop that. Girls should be strong and teach the society a lesson.
Believe in yourself and stop giving dowry to these selfish men. I really hope if i could do something for the village girls and had that much power to save them from this men dominated world.
Prasheetha
On December 27, 2009 at 11:29 pm
http://www.cry.org and look into other legitimate organizations. How do you know it is legitimate? if you don’t trust their work online (indiadivine.org or cry.org) then go visit and see for yourself. Or adopt the orphans! Do you want foreigners adopting them instead? as someone who claims they are Indian, then your first obligation should be to help your country! it is, despite it’s advances in so many areas, still a war torn country.
looking over
On April 7, 2010 at 11:38 pm
I disagree with dowery because it is forbidded by Allah. I have to however say i do also agree with Rakesh Kapur that women are also not as they seem. I now this because i am from pakistan and as you know we used to be one country, but i have seen how women manipulate men. My family doesn’t believe in dowery but both families do give gifts to the couple lke washing machines,clothes things required to live and sometimes even money if one of the families desperately needs it but thats out of the goodness of our hearts.
rakesh suggests that women are not as they seem because they are the victims but when the shoe is on the other foot they do exactly what this article suggests about men.
I have been told by my mother yes a woman that her father had arranged his sons wedding with a poor family and not asked a penny and payed for the wedding with his own money on the account of he wanted the weding to be HUGE so that the whole villag was to see that his son is being wed.
After the wedding the couple comes every week to visit and pressues her father in law for money but he said look i am retired i can’t afford to give you money like this i have another son too he deserves it aswell. Soon later she took off with everything that she could lift that is fortunetly the big things like the tv washing machine etc were left she took the jewellery whatever money she got and ran away. when her parents were questioned they were not be found.
Obviously your thinking this story is false or doesn’t usually happen and your right it doesn’t happen often but similar less sinister cases are common both for men and women.
i have to also have to really disagree with these statistics they look like they have been tampered with. If it were like this people who have 3 to 6 daughters/sisters which is common wich accounts for probably for 1/3 of the population(just guessing on that figure may not be accurate)
SO IF WAT YOU ARE SAYING IS TRUE TELL ME DOES THIS MEAN ONE THIRD OF INDIA DIE EVERY YEAR
I DONT THINK SO
ElenaMartina
On September 12, 2010 at 6:55 pm
I AM WRITING ABOUT BOOK ABOUT THIS VERY THING, ALTHOUGH IT IS FICTION, I KNOW IT HAPPENS TO COUNTRIES OTHER THAN INDIA. IT COMES OUT IN 2011.
MY BLOG: htpp://whoselenamartina.blogspot.com/
ElenaMartina
On November 7, 2010 at 1:25 am
Hi, I am writing a book about an arranged marriage and the dowry involved. It’s a novel and it will come out in 2011.
jaya
On March 9, 2011 at 9:56 am
mein shrimati jaya sachin devikar. mein khud ek dovery case ke karan pidit hu mere ghar walo ne ( meri sas laxmi, devar banti, mama mami— nand — rani, in sab logo ne paise ke liye muzse bahut sataya hai,,, roj roj paise ke liye taklif di hai, polic wolo ne bhi koi help nai ki hai is liye cort se case lad rahi hu muzse insaf do plzzzzzzzzz
Agar nahi mila to mein yah manu gee sahi mein aaj bhi ladki ek Abhishap hai our jindgi bahar Abhishap rahe geee
jaya_shinde1980@yahoo.co.in
mumbai