Dowry system

                                                  Dowry system

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. Dowry is an ancient custom, and its existence may well predate records of it. Among the social evils that prevail and plague the society, the dowry system plays the most devastating role. It has spread out its tentacles far and wide in the society affecting almost every section of the society. Child marriage and the giving and receiving of dowries are major factors in the continuation of domestic violence in Bangladesh. Laws have been passed that criminalize both practices, but they are difficult to enforce, especially in rural areas where custom and tradition tend to govern social life. An advocacy project supported by UNFPA has worked from the grass roots to change the cultural beliefs and practices through which violence against women persists. A host of community groups, made up of civic and political leaders, imams, village elders, schoolteachers, mothers-in-law, young people and others are challenging age-old practices, and proving that culture is anything but static. Consequent to the monstrous growth of dowry system, it has become a part and parcel of the institution of marriage. In other words, without dowry no marriage is solemnized.. In fact before fixing a marriage or engagement, dowry is demanded as a precondition. When the demand for dowry is not accepted, a disagreement is reached and the marriage proposal gets foiled even at the preliminary stage. The personality of a bride or bridegroom, their willingness for the proposed marriage etc which are normally considered as the essential prerequisites of a marriage take the backstage. Another salient feature of the dowry system is that it is always associated with the status of the parties to the marriage. In particular, in the arranged marriages, the bridegroom’s parents demand a sum in cash or in kind, in the form of jewelry, material things like household articles, car and house etc. The irony is such demands are made befitting the economic status of the bridegroom’s family or the position held by the bridegroom or the actual amount that he earns as salary or in his business or profession. If the agreed amount of cash or kind is not paid before the marriage, it even leads to the termination of the contract of marriage and the marriage is not solemnized. The system of dowry has also become a primary source of post-marital disputes. When the agreed amount of dowry is not paid or it is partly paid and partly promised, sometimes the marriage is solemnized and even consummated. When the bride’s family is not able to fulfill the promise of dowry due to poverty, the strife begins at the marital home, in which the entire family members of the bridegroom is pitted against the bride. Going further, the bride, for no fault of her, is verbally abused in a vituperative language, assaulted or violently beaten by her husband, in extreme cases the bride is strangled to death or put to flame using petrol or kerosene. The bride is not spared even when she is pregnant or a mother of a baby. Unable to fulfill the dowry demands of the marital home, the bride is mostly driven back to her parent’s home. Somehow or other, the brides’ parents should fulfill the demands for dowry, so as to ensure a better future for their daughters at their marital homes. In the result, the bride’s parents become heavily indebted and wallow in poverty or struggle to have their both ends meet throughout their life. Sometimes, hapless men are being harassed by women misusing the provisions of Dowry Prohibition Act, preferring false complaints against their husbands. Hence, courts have begun to consider such cases sympathetically and even issued instructions accordingly. If a woman prefers a complaint against her husband on the ground of harassment for dowry, the police authorities need not automatically arrest him unless a prima facie case is made out on enquiry. Thus the dowry system creates a chaos in the society, by promoting violence and strife among the members of the families and thereby dismembering the families. As early as 1939, the evils of the dowry system were felt. Sporadic State legislations were not do to prevent the widely prevalent dowry system. Subsequent to independence, the Government of India began to enact legislations empowering women in India. It should begin from the schools and colleges in which the student community should be properly educated against the evils of dowry system and they should even take a vow that they will not give or take dowry from their prospective spouses. Spreading the message against the dowry system by conducting periodical legal aid camps and offering counseling to the victims as well as the general public will help to spread the awareness among them against the dowry system. Creating more stringent provisions in the dowry prohibition act like awarding a higher punishment to those who take or give or even demand dowry. Imposing punishments like imprisonment to those who cause the death of the victim by dowry harassment is a way of giving stringent punishment.The root cause for the existence and continuation of the dowry system is that parents of the bride despite being poor agree to the unreasonable demands for dowry made by the parents of the bridegroom. Therefore, they should make it a policy that they will never agree or make any compromise on the issue of giving or taking dowry, how long their daughter may remain unmarried.It requires commitment to eradicate the system of dowry. Perhaps a whole generation may have to suffer to get rid of this evil system. Instead of suffering from dowry harassment or losing your precious lives, it is better to remain unmarried for a common cause and for the benefit of the posterity.