Dowry: An Unsolved Problem

What Dowry Meant in Ancient India?

According to dictionary, dowry is an amount of property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage. In other words, it refers to the gifts given by parents to their daughters on the day of their marriage. Dowry existed in precolonial India but in those days its meaning and purpose were entirely different from today's dowry. In precolonial India dowry was not a practice. It was an institution managed by women in order to establish and prove their status in their parent's house. The institution of dowry was a way of giving a part of the wealth of parents to their daughters just like it is given to their sons. This proves that in ancient India dowry emerged as a process of providing equal rights to sons and daughters. Parents were not forced to give anything beyond their budget. All the gifts were given by their own will. Hence it can be concluded that dowry started as an institution in India which had very positive goals.

Dowry in precolonial India was a part of parents' wealth that was believed to belong to their daughter.

What Dowry Meant in Colonial India?

Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime, a book by Veena Talwar Oldenburg, explains how dowry changed over time. It is a well researched book and it consists of facts based on a paper trail left by British bureaucrats. This book explains how dowry changed from a positive institution to an evil in Indian society. This book describes how dowry became the reason of female infanticide, violence on married women, financial stress on parents of girl child, imbalance in male-female ratio and broken marriages. Moreover, dowry led the murders of married women. In some cases it was found that women were burnt alive because their parents were not able meet the dowry demands of the in-laws.

So, we can say that, dowry emerged as an institution meant for the welfare of women but, over time it turned into a social evil which started harming women. With some new amendments in laws, a new cycle of dowry emerged which was entirely different from the original one.

Dowry: An institution made for welfare of women turned into a social evil that started harming women.

Private Ownership of Property and Dowry

Main cause of turning anything into a social evil is greed. But, if we make a detailed study on how dowry became a social evil in India, we will come across some incidents that happened in colonial India during British rule. Initially, in India, property was never private. It belonged to either government or the people living on that land. Whenever any natural disaster struck, people used to move from one place to another, in search of livelihood and a house. Anyone was free to live anywhere as per their will. But British government brought in the concept of private owned property. So, from then every property was privately owned. In addition to this, women could not own any property. Hence, every gift or cash that was brought by bride on the day of marriage belonged to the husband. With this started a completely new system of dowry.

Initially, everything that was given to the bride belonged to the bride, but now, with this new rule, bride could not possess anything and as a result all dowry was received by the husband. So, here began the cycle of greed. Its in human's nature that whenever he get something(specially when it is free of cost), he wishes to get more.

Ambitions and wishes grow with time and eventually takes form of greed.It happened in this case as well. An institution made for a good purpose suddenly became an evil. Moreover, it started harming those who were supposed to be benefited from it.

Dowry in post-colonial India

Britishers left India, but their concept of private ownership of males left aftereffects on Indian society. Many lives spoiled in the aftermath of newly emerged dowry system. Affordable gifts by parents given as dowry changed into high demands of in-laws which were out of budget. As a result, girl child were believed to be a burden on the family and this further resulted into female infanticides. Female infanticides increased rapidly and disturbed the male-female ratio in many regions. People started believing that if they kill females before their birth then there would be no marriage and no demand for dowry needs to be fulfilled. Women who were already married were tortured and forced to take money and other expensive things from their parents and give all that to their in-laws. Those, whose parents could not meet the demands were burned alive. That one law ruined the entire institution of dowry. Seeing this violence against women, Indian government made laws against dowry. In today's India, taking and giving dowry is a crime. One can be imprisoned and fined if found guilty.

Bridegrooms on Sale

Today's scenario in some states of India is that their are fixed prices of dowry. In states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh parents fix the price of their sons at which they will get married. Starting from Rupees 50,00,000 to more higher amounts, the rates of dowry are fixed. In these states when parents of girls start looking for a bridegroom, before talking about anything else they talk about how much they can pay for the bridegroom. It looks like a business deal. It looks like that parents are selling of their sons at a price fixed by them. There are no marriages, there is only business. A business in which people make a lifetime deal and sell their sons off at a high price to the bride and her family. Marriage does not exist anywhere in this business affair.

Although female infanticides have vanished but dowry still exists. Bridegrooms are on sale in India. You can buy one at a reasonable rate. The price one has to pay is based on the qualifications of the bridegroom. This is very similar to furniture shopping. When one buys some furniture, the credibility of seller, material of furniture, how long it will go, everything is checked and then if buyer is satisfied with everything, deal is done, price is paid and that piece of furniture belongs to the buyer. In the similar way, while buying a bridegroom, credibility of his family is checked, material of the bridegroom i.e his qualifications are checked, and if the buyer is satisfied the amount is paid and the bridegroom is handed over to the bride as soon as the payment is made. This is what happens nowadays in many regions of India.

Final Conclusion

In ancient India dowry comprised of the affordable gifts which were given by parents to their daughters on their marriage but in today's context dowry is a pricey affair which is forced upon bride's family. In ancient times, the affair of tying knots was marriage but in today's context it is a form of business in which people sell their sons. On seeing from outside, it seems that all laws have diminished the act of dowry but when one takes a deep look it is found out that dowry still exists and that too in a very brutal form.