Dowry : A crime or the right of the girl ?

       Whenever we talk about dowry, we talk about the evils that it has brought in to the society. To solve the problems it has created,  we must deep dive into it's origin and how it got en-rooted in our culture. For that we first need to see our social structure and its historical background.  

Composition of family :

           At the basic level we can say that a family has mother, father , sons and daughters. Then there can be joint families staying together. As a family it has ancestral house, properties, farm land, business, gold and other assets.  We have culture in our society where sons stay with the parents forever while daughters move to the house of in-laws after the marriage.  This leads to certain discriminatory situation where assets that belongs to parents and ancestors remains with the sons and he enjoys it all along his life while depriving the daughters of their equal rights in it.

   

    There can be certain ways to handle this

      1)      Partition of properties / business and other assets at the time of marriage. But that may lead to abrupt situation for parents at the time of marriages, like dividing or selling their residential home etc.

      2)      Divide the properties / business and other assets at the time of demise of parents. That will deprive the daughter of her rights for most part of her life.

    

      On the other hand also after marriage when a girl goes to her in-laws house, all the financial responsibility to run the family, expenses of the girl / wife , kids etc. , comes on boy / husband and on his parents. That again leads to imbalance with almost no responsibility / contribution from the girl / wife or her family.

      It was tricky to find an optimum solution to solve both of these situations.  We must respect our ancestors for their innovation and how beautifully they used to handle the situations and embedded them deep into our culture so that other generations also can take the benefit out of it. They devised the meticulous solution that solves both problems altogether. A culture was developed in which girl’s parents used to give considerable assets to the girl at the time of wedding and then all along their lifetime. That is why we have deep enrooted in our Hindu / Indian culture that girl’s parents give gifts on all festival and other occasions to the girl and her family. That way it also brings the contribution from the girl in the upbringing of her family and she gets her rightful part from her ancestral assets also.

How society was destroyed:

    Greed has no boundaries and sees no relation whether it means doing injustice to their daughter or sister.  There was always certain breed of people who didn’t have heart to give anything to their daughter or sister and who wanted to enjoy the whole ancestral wealth for themselves only. They didn’t want to give the righteous right of the girl to her at all and at the time of marriage also. British saw the opportunity in that to destabilize the society, they promoted and supported such greedy people and coined the term Dahej / Dowry. They not only supported such people but also projected giving anything to the girl / bride in negative sense and termed it as an anti-social practice, hence breaking the thread and imparting the imbalance in the society.  It created the imbalance

   1)      Now girl / daughter were deprived from her rightful ancestral property / assets.

   2)      Whole burden of family came on the shoulders of husband only, while no contribution from girl.

   3)      Girl’s financial power was taken away, while previously girl was strong with financial support from her parents now this left her at the mercy of her in-laws.

        This led to the social thinking where it became a stigma if a girl / wife takes anything from her own parents while it was acceptable to take anything from boy / husband’s parents, It led to further deterioration in the situation of girls where they were forever deprived from her right in her own ancestral assets. A willful act of gifting by the girl’s parents had become stigmata.

    This opportunity is used by greedy people who don’t want to give anything from ancestral wealth to their daughter or sister.  It can be seen in the current society where women are not given her right in the ancestral wealth neither at the time of marriage and nor even later on, women / daughters can be seen struggling to get any part of her ancestral property and fighting court cases with her brothers.  

       Final nail in the coffin was hammered by the law, which further added misery of women, when Hindu succession act 1956 debarred the married women from her right of share in her own ancestral property, hence legally snatching all rights of girl / daughter. It was a pity that constitution allowed discrimination to the extent that while son can enjoy the ancestral wealth throughout his life, daughter was debarred from any right in her own ancestral property and further icing on the cake was added by dowry prohibition laws which added further stigmata even talking about the girl’s right in her own ancestral property as Dowry, helping the greedy people who doesn’t want to give the right of their daughters / sisters.

    Although our law, constitution and current society is not yet as mature as our ancient inherent culture, law it trying to undo its mistakes and has taken step in bringing Hindu Succession act amendment 2005, giving back some of the rights of the married girls / daughter.

         A lot has been said about dowry culture, we have heard sentences that, girl’s parents are always worried that they have to accumulate money for their daughter’s dowry.  But have we ever considered that a boy’s parents are always worried that 

   1)      Their son should get proper education or else who will marry him

   2)      Their son should get good job or else who will marry him

   3)      Their son should start earning good or else who will marry him

   4)      Their son should first establish his business or else who will marry him as no one will give their daughter to a struggling businessman.

   5)      Parents with no assets of their own have difficulty in getting their son married, as no one wants to give their girl to their son.

   6)      Girl’s parents ask for the salary and earnings of boy

   7)      Girl’s parents check the status and assets of boy’s parents.

          With all these we can say that pressure is not only on girl’s parents, there is much much more pressure on boy and his parents as far as marriage is considered. If we consider a simple situation where boy’s parents don’t have many assets and their son also doesn’t have job, now consider exactly same situation for a girl. It will be much easier for the girl to get married but it will be almost impossible for the boy to get any girl for marriage and with our Hippocratic society they will blame the boy only that it’s his mistake as he is not working.

       This whole situation give rise to some questions that our current society need to answer, which will also establish if our current modern society is a progressive society or in reality a regressive society:-

   1) When we talk about equality why there should be discrimination between the rights of sons and daughters.  While son enjoys the benefits of ancestral wealth throughout his life,

a) What are the rights of daughter?

b) Why at the time of marriage, she is deprived from all the amenities she is used to by birth?

c) Why it is not her right to enjoy her ancestral wealth throughout her life?

d) At the time of marriage why a girl should be deprived of her right and the standard that she belong to?

e) Why girl shouldn’t be given part of her parent’s and ancestor’s assets at the time of her marriage?

f) Is it not the duty of the husband to stand by his wife and demand for her righteous right?

g) Boy / Husband and his family based on their status contribute their resources in the newly created family, then why it is not acceptable and required that girl / wife and her family also to contribute resources based on their status.

   2) During the marriage, boy’s parents give lot of Jewelry and other gifts to the girl and girl even ask from them as her right. Then why it is considered a stigma when anything is given to boy or boy asks anything from the girl’s parents.

   3) Status of the boy’s family and his salary is always asked by the girl’s family before the marriage, to see what type of living standard he can give to the girl, then why it is wrong to check the status of the girl’s family?

   4) While asking for dowry is a crime, why asking for boy’s salary, his properties and his parent’s properties is not a crime?

   5) If a girl breaks the marriage, if salary of boy or properties declared by him found to be incorrect , why it is not considered equivalent to breaking the marriage for dowry demand?

   6) A simple research on spending patterns in a family revels that in an average Indian family, maximum expense is done by and on the wife, second on the kids and last and least on the husband.  When boy / Husband and his family financially contributes in the family, then why wife and her parents shouldn’t have any responsibility towards the family. Why it is a stigma if wife or her family is asked to bring any financial contribution?

     If a girl is entering into the marriage with lifelong motive, why there is hesitation in contributing in the in-law’s family.  It can be rightly said that only in following scenarios girl or her parents avoid to give anything to the girl:-

   1) Where parents / brothers have intention to usurp the right of the girl / bride

   2) Girl does not have intention to continue the marriage as lifelong affair.

 Dowry : In reality a stigma or society created hoax evil .

   Before calling any of our old culture as evil, we as a society must think, is our modern society in reality a progressive society or are we just destroying the balance created by long drawn culture.