Firstly we should know what is dowry?
Dowry is a kind of gifts in the form of cash, furniture,
crockery and many household items given to the bridegroom's family along with
bride.
We are all familiar with the story: boy meets girl, boy
falls in love with girl, boy and girl gets married. For the majority of the
western world, this is our ideal of a great beginning to a perfect marriage. It
is important to realize that while India is pretty modernized, in some aspects
they still keep to the tradition of arranged marriages.
Dowry system- the name seems to be so old. But the policy
is still in practice. No one can deny this. Some people will give dowry to show
their status.
Is dowry a form of gift? Or is it a way of the girl’s
parents to help the newly wedded couple? When and how are the demands for dowry
made? This form of harassment has brought many women to despair leading them to
suicide.
Since marriage is one of the most important decisions a
person will ever make and because divorce is not accepted among most Indians,
it is imperative that the marriage choice is carefully thought out and planned.
How can a young person make such an important decision on his/her own? Instead,
the family looks for certain traits in a marriage partner. Some desirable traits
looked for in both male and female are: matching levels of education, matching
cultures, close parental cities, matching religions, and status are just to
name a few.
At some point of time in our history, wealthy families
used to give these gifts to bridegroom's family to help the newly wedded couple
in the settlement of their newly started marriage life. But with time,
acceptance of dowry system was adopted as a cultural norm in d society and
slowly it become compulsory for the bride's family to pay dowry to the
bridegroom's family. Thus, marriages became a business in the Indian
society where all the happiness, dreams and hopes of a girl were suppressed
under the heavy burden of dowry.
Thought the government took various steps to reduce this
crisis in the country, the dowry system still prevails in our society. Today we
think that this problem is only in the conservative families but it is not true
even in the highly educated families, this acceptance takes place.
Will we ever be
able to eradicate this problem completely? I have a doubt..
The system of dowry is majorly associated with arranged
marriages. Indian women depend on their husbands for their living. They do not
have financial independence. Some husbands consider their wives a burden. This
kind of thinking should be changed. Women should be given a place of honour.
Today, the girls are well educated, and are capable of supporting themselves.
Girls have their own dreams, which they sacrifice all their life. I ask why
can’t a girl have her life the way she wants? It is a shame that Indian society
still lives a hypocrite world, a life in which they pretend to be modern by
norms but still kill the dreams of girls.
Of course, there is always that dark side. While these
situations are becoming rarer, they still occur often enough to warrant some
discussion on them. There are those families who will use the bride's dowry as
their own. There have been horrible, true stories of the groom's family
agreeing to one dowry and after the bride is married demanding more from the
bride's parents. Threats of divorce are often used to entice the bride's
parents to give more dowry. In a country where shame is brought down on the
divorcee, parents of the bride will do whatever they can to save their
daughters this shame. Occasionally, the threat of physical violence is used.
There really is no way these type situations can end happily.
Dowry harassment can come in various forms, for eg:
· Verbal
abuse
· Physical
torture
· Hinting
dowry
· Insulting
the bride’s family
· Contact
with the world prohibited
· Not
providing money or food
· Divorce
threats
· Throwing
out of the house after marriage
· Not
letting the girl live the way she wants, etc
Its high time we get out of this system, and stop ruining
our own daughters lives. How can people expect their daughters to stay with
people who don’t even care about her life? Who keep taunting her for things and
cause her trouble? The big fat Indian weddings as it is termed, is nothing more
than glam and status symbol for people. The truth lies behind the scene.
Today, every person in this society should take steps to
eradicate this cause. It is important to support the girls today. The
government and the laws today have created a lot of ways to help the women who
have problems like these in their life. Though still these are not applied the
way they should be. I ask, is it it not enough for a grooms family to have
the girl with them? Why does our society not understand how much love the girl
needs? She leaves her entire world and comes to a new place, a new life, and
new relations? People need to know that the girl coming to their family is also
somebody’s daughter, and needs to be treated like a daughter even in the
marital house and not like a daughter in law n treat her with the stupid Indian
norms. We live in a fake world, and somewhere even we all have started faking
ourselves.
I would just ask the new generation to wake up and
support the cause of anti-dowry. Raise your voices and stand against it.
All I would say in the end is:
“BURN DOWRY,
NOT WOMEN”
