Dowry
In the strictest terms, this word is used
in modern Indian society to designate
any wealth transferred from the bride’s
family to the groom’s as a condition for
the marriage to occur. As with most
marriages around the world, Hindu
marriages often involve giving gifts to
the couple, but Indians themselves draw
distinctions between different cate-
gories of gifts. It is customary for the
bride’s parents to give her gifts of cloth-
ing and jewelry for her wedding, accord-
ing to their means. This practice is
attested in the dharma literature’s(text
on religious duty) description of the
Brahma marriage. This is one of the
eight recognized ways to perform a mar-
riage and describes the bride as richly
adorned. These gifts are her personal
property, and serve both to give the
bride some wealth of her own and as a
last resort for the family. It is also com-
mon for the bride’s family to give gifts to
the groom and his family, of which the
greatest is the “gift of a virgin”
(kanyadan), i.e., the bride herself. In
many cases, the newlyweds also receive
gifts from other relatives, particularly
when they are setting up a household.
Both of these sorts of gifts carry no stig-
ma in Indian society and in the popular
mind are not considered “dowry.”
Unfortunately, not all wedding “gifts”
fall into these categories. Most mar-
riages in India are still arranged by the
parents, who are operating under differ-
ing imperatives. For the bride’s parents,
marrying off their daughter is a religious
duty, which is over and above their nat-
ural inclination to provide for their
daughter. This gives the groom’s parents
a distinct advantage, since they “take”
the bride, and this advantage can give
rise to ugly and even tragic situations.
The parents of a young man with a
promising career can usually expect
larger and richer gifts from the bride’s
family, since her future will be more
secure. In many cases these gifts are nei-
ther asked for nor negotiated, but sim-
ply given as part of the exchange
between two families of equal status. In
the worst cases, the groom’s family pre-
sents a list of demands, which the bride’s
family is expected to fulfill as a condi-
tion for the marriage. Given the pressure
to marry off their daughters, the bride’s
parents may promise more than they are
actually able to “deliver.” One conse-
quence of this failure is the much-publi-
cized dowry deaths, in which the bride
is killed.
Most decent people in India recoil at
the notion of “selling” their sonsto the
highest bidder, or of using his marriage
as an opportunity for the family to get
rich. At the same time, it is generally
accepted that marrying one’s daughter
will entail considerable effort and
expenditure, and that at her wedding
one should give appropriate gifts. It is
from these assumptions that the evils of
dowry stem, and can be exploited by
unscrupulous people.Dowry Death
Name given to a particular type of
violent crime against women. According
to the much-publicized pattern, it is
the killing of a new bride by her in-laws,
either for failing to bring enough
dowry with her into the marriage,
or when her parents could not deliver
the dowry that had been promised.
In many cases these women were killed
by being doused with kerosene and
lit, since this could be passed off as
an accidental death suffered while
cooking. These murders received great
publicity in India and abroad in
the mid-1980s, in part because of
their calculated and horrific nature.
The aforementioned pattern simplifies
the issues, however, by reducing it to
a question of money. It is true that
there have been many cases in which
women have been killed solely for
financial reasons—that is, for not
bringing enough dowry. Yet many of the
victims of these so-called dowry deaths
had been married for years, and their
deaths are better explained as the
result of an escalating pattern ofDowry Death