Education, Essay, Lifestyle

Dowry demands in India

Ethnography of Indian Culture

In the dowry system, dowry (huge payment in various forms) is forcefully demanded from the bride’s family as a precondition for marriage by the bridegroom’s family . It is strange to know that Dowry is a socially accepted custom and is sought according to the market rates, which are set as per the designation of the bridegroom. Hence, upon receiving the marriage proposal, boy’s family will ask for dowry budget of the girl’s family and will accept the proposal if the offered dowry budget is handsome.

Introduction:screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-11-45-17-am

India is the second most populous country in the world with the population of 1.2 billion people (as reported by 2011 census), having diverse religions and traditions; it is a multilingual and multi ethnic country. India is the home to ancient Indus Valley Civilization and today majority of its people are Hindus practicing Hinduism. Since long ago, many unusual customs have been practiced in different parts of India, like the practice of fire-walking to please their gods, each villager honors to reside Cobras in their houses in Shetpal- Sholapur, a temple dedicated to the safety and prestige of Rats in Deshnoke- Rajasthan where thousands of rats are given meals daily, Sati tradition of burning the widow alive on the death of her husband, child marriages in which small girls are forcefully got married to older men, getting a religious plant (Basil) married toHindu god, practice of marrying little girts to gods, and many other such traditions. The unusual Hindu custom I have chosen to write about, addressing the ethnography of a culture in this essay is: “Practice of demanding huge dowry from bride’s parents”.

Explanation:

Dowry is defined as: all kind of cash, gifts, gold, furniture, electronics, household items, car, property, etc. that is given to the bridegroom’s family by the bride’s family. Unconditional exchange of gifts at the time of marriage is quite common and is seen in almost every culture or religion but this concept of dowry in Indian culture is totally different from all around the world. In this dowry system, dowry (huge payment in various forms) is forcefully demanded from the bride’s family as a precondition for marriage by the bridegroom’s familscreen-shot-2016-09-27-at-11-45-10-amy. Hence marriage will be settled only if bride’s parents accept the demands. In addition to this, dowry demands are not over at the time of wedding but it is an ongoing process in which dowry is demanded from the daughter-in-law’s parents from time to time in the form of jewelry, cash, land, electrical appliances, or any other favor. This tradition is so much common in India and has its roots there since centuries that nowadays it is seen to spread in the nearby countries and among the people of other religions too. Not only that, the practice of dowry is being promoted through media in talk shows, serials, commercials and other sources. Viewers or the attendants of marriage get entertained and enjoy the colorful feast having so many gifts for the guests from bride’s side, sky high range of dinner menu, expensive wedding hall and its decorations, wedding programs including singing and dancing, projectors, sound systems, video recordings, etc. but no one except the bride’s family truly understands how difficult it is to bear the wedding burden of a daughter.

In India, when a girl is born, parents start saving for her dowry from the very moment, in order to meet the dowry expenses. It is for this reason; girls are thought to be the big liabilities for their parents. Parents are also seen to grant marriage loans from banks (which come in many schemes) at the time of their daughters’ weddings. Dowry is a socially accepted custom and is sought according to the market rates. The market rates of dowry are set as per the designation and job/ post of the bridegroom. As per the report dated few years ago, “The dowry rates of a bachelor IAS (Indian Administrative Service) Officer range between Rs. 50,00,000 to 500,000,000 (equal to 1 million USD)”. Marriage proposal is usually initiated by girl’s family and is sent to the bachelor’s family through a broker, pundit or any other mediator. Upon receiving the marriage proposal, boy’s parents ask for the dowry budget of girl’s family. If boy’s family finds the budget quite attractive, they accept the marriage proposal abruptly. But in case boy’s family wants to wait for the more attractive proposals to come, they keep the previous marriage proposal on hold for some time.

The worst aspect of dowry system is that, when girls are born, parents are forced to kill many of them after birth to avoid the burden of dowry at the time of their marriages. Many times, pregnancy is aborted once it is found the child to be is a screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-11-45-25-amgirl. Such practice of sex selection of a child before birth has dramatically changed the male to female sex ratio in India, which according to a research is 1000:940. Since the fact that abortion is legal th
ere, parents prefer to give birth to the sons who will ultimately be cause of bringing fortunes to the family in the form of dowry. Such an irony is that at one hand,parents despise the concept of dowry at the time of their daughter’s marriage but same time they become part of it by demanding dowry at the time of their son’s marriage.

Although it is a fact that dowry system is legally prohibited and government has imposed a restriction against dowry payments under The 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act in Indian civil law and under Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). But still dowry is openly demanded and offered all over India that shows the law is not very strict on this aspect of society. So many anthropologist, women rights and human rights activist raise their voice from time to time; against such criminal practice of dowry demands but the outcome is still same ongoing practice of dowry demands, which was in the times of our grandparents. I was really shocked when I came to know that a great number of women are killed if they refuse or are unable to fulfill the ongoing dowry demands of in-laws after marriage. This is termed as ‘Dowry Death’ which alone in Bangalore was reported as 52 in the year 2010.Such a greedy practice is commonly observed there since centuries and socially accepted also that one cannot think out of the box now.

Apart from the concept of dowry as a social practice, it has its religious aspect also. According to a blog written by Sofi W. (2010), “The Vedas prescribe that a dowry be given by the bride’s family to the groom. The Rig Veda states that cows and gifts given by the Aryan father of the bride to the daughter accompanied the bride’s procession [ RgVed X.85 ] [ Apte 12 ]. ‘Kakshivat’ in the Vedas says he became rich by the father-in-law giving him 10 chariots and maids and 1060 cows during the marriage ceremony [ RgVed I.126 ] [ Apte 13 ]”. According to Wikipedia, India is internationally famous for “The architecture of Taj Mahal, which was constructed in Agra between the years 1631 and 1648 by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife, and has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as “the jewel of Muslim art in India”. Taj Mahal is still known as the symbol of love but it seems like the practice of dowry demands in India is the shame on the symbol of love in the same country.

Conclusion:

As mentioned by Geertz C. (1972), “According to a proverb, everyone loves its own form of violence”. Hence the essay on Dowry Demands is an Indian reflection of this proverb that people are living among such inexplicable violence of dowry system but still they love it, offer it, demand it and promote it. In dowry system, the bride has to be covered with gold jewelry as a gift frscreen-shot-2016-09-27-at-11-45-34-amom parents as this is suggested in Shastras (Hindu Vedic scripture or sacred books). The practice of dowry can be treated as family status symbol but its consequences are very deadly and lasting. As a result of this strange practice of dowry system, multitude of girls are left unmarried in India as their parents are unable to fulfill the sky-high demands of dowry by boy’s parents. If media takes a necessary step to stop this deadly practice, they can bring a big change. A lot can be done through social networking websites, blogs, online forums and e-communities. The practice can be altered if the common public changes its perspective and accepts the fact that dowry demand is a greedy practice and refuse to marry their daughter in a family which demands preconditioned dowry.
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