Were you sold to your DH and his family or not????

Mine was love marriage and no dowry. But then neither my community nor that of my DH's has dowry custom. So love or not doesn't matter. After 15 yrs of marriage I got 1/3 the property owned by my parents along with my brother and my mom. But none of this was discussed before my dad died.
I am from AP and dowries in 2 or 3 castes run in crores of worth assests. I think The solution to Dowry is making inheritance laws giving property rights to daughters and also parents of daughters implementing them.

BTW
1. LOVE MARRIAGE IS NO DIFFERENT
in those communities where dowry is common and huge, I know love marriages with huge dowries as in any arranged marriages.

2. Also not giving dowry is no assurance of getting a groom who will treat bride decently or is not money minded. He could be money minded but NOT IN POSITION TO DEMAND DOWRY. Dowry depends on education,job security, salary,property, looks,MARKETING SKILLS, etc.

 

If a guy does not treat his wife right, he is first a coward, second a criminal who can be prosecuted for abuse.
We cannot justify dowry in any way. It is a crime under law and rightfully so. Unless we stop giving reasons as to why dowry is important it will stay in our society. If all accept it as a criminal act then only can we get rid of this evil.


It is all these lame reasoning that people give about assurance of happiness for the girl that has allowed dowry system to grow. Think of all those young girls who were brutally burned alive for not being able to pay dowry. Do we as a society owe nothing to them? Can we not correct our system instead of trying to justify it?

Accept the fact that Dowry give and take is a crime and stop it from happening. As long as we continue to take everything with a pinch of salt, nothing will get rectified in our system.

 

Whoa! Next there will be a "Get trained to earn max dowry! Join for only $3000 and we train you in 1 week. Your investment will pay back several fold' Advertisements.

 

deepshikha,
Hello ! you are totally misunderstanding what I wrote. Does this really sound like an excuse for supporting or justifying dowry?Looks like you just were waiting for an opportunity to express all that real eagerly.

It is a fact that dowry depends on all the above mentioned facts. In fact dowry depends on girls looks edu etc too. I remember one guy in my college (hardly studied, paid to pass)saying he is getting undergrad so his parents can demand more dowry. But does that mean it is justified ? ofcourse NO, what is the problem ?
And IMO not taking dowry is no proof to not being money minded. I do know guys who married without dowry as they are not well educated or due to some other flaw,but are after the salary of the wife or live in ILs place half the time. Your emotions about dowry are undestandable but I don't need the chastizing. Give it to your friends or relatives who may need. May be you can report those among your freinds and family who are indulging in these practices. That would be helpful.

BTW I am not responsible for all those girls burned alive . THEMSELVES, THEIR PARENTS AND HUSBANDS AND ILs are responsible. I took care not give dowry. My parents and my ILs didn't give or take. I didn't encourage it in anyway.

IMO proper inheritance laws can make women truly equal to men and dowry irrelevant. Instead of giving dowry parents can give their daughters equal inheritance just like they give to sons after them. I know a guy (has a little property)married to a girl, who will inherit a lot of property. The girl's father has full control on it and takes care of it as he did earlier. She in no way feels used or as though money was the major factor in marriage. She is in control. Her money is hers not just given away to the ILs or DH.
No Law in India is well implemented, dowry laws are no exception. I don't think It alone is going to work. HOW MANY CAN ACTUALLY REPORT A FREIND'S OR RELATIVE'S MARRIAGE INVOLVING DOWRY TO POLICE? OR REFUSE TO ATTEND THEIR MARRIAGE?

Spiderman1,

Yes. I wouldn't be surprised. Informally parents of grooms are advised on how to extract max dowry from girl's parents.Parents are well aware of the going rates for each occupation in a given state in India. My community has no dowry custom. My cousin loved and married a guy from another community with dowry custom so my uncle had to give dowry. Love marriages too don't solve the problem. Also I heard about a case where the boy's family blackmailed girl's family to pay more dowry as the girl was not ready to marry anyone else as she loves that boy. Love can sometimes truly be blind, even to the character of the guy.

In olden days there were 5 legitimate ways of marrying. I think 2 or 3 allowed man to offer gifts to girl's family. Brahma vivaha which involved no exchange was considered the best in Manusmriti. gandharva too didn't involve exachange.

 

You know the gross injustice I see in the whole dowry system is some old guy(read bride's dad) who probably worked all his life and saved money and one fine day, some guy under the aegis of 'son in law' snatches it all away leaving the old man with very little. Where is the justice and compassion in that?
Anyone who takes dowry ever think about how they are depriving some old man of all his life savings just to marry his daughter?

 

Greed knows no compassion in this world. Greed in any form.

 

Is it very sad indeed. :thumbsdown

But your example illustrates the sad reality of how dowry turns into a vicious cycle. So what will the old man do to get back some of his life savings? Pull the same dowry trick when it's time for HIS son to get married. :bonk

 

You know, chances are that the old man does not think anything is wrong with this practice. He’s probably did or will do the same for his son. And no worries if he has no money for isn’t it the duty of the son to provide for him in his old age? As for his daughter, she belongs to her husband and his family and is therefore of no use to him in his old age. The painful truth probably hits him when he has daughters only, and even then, he probably thinks he has been cursed for having just daughters. And thus the cycle continues, with preference for male offsprings by both men and women. And you know the rest.

And what are the daughters doing while all this has been happening? Why are they so hapless, even the educated ones? Why can’t they tell their prospective husbands to shove it? Is it because to be married is the goal of a woman, and without marriage you’re nothing?

I am maybe exaggerating the above for dramatic effect, but I think it illustrates that everyone needs to change their thinking, and everyone has a part to play, and unless certain fundamentals of a society change, the problem of dowry will remain.

PS. Now that there are more men than women, will there be reverse discrimination i.e. of women demanding dowry in the future?

 

hi,
i always raise this question whenever there is any dowry related thread(and there have been many & will be more in future)
what happens when the girl herself demand that her parents give her the dowry.she may argue that she is used to such & such thing & if her in-laws don't have then how she will LIVE......(my cousin asked her parents to provide AC & aqua guard stating above)

the thing is that many a girls are not themself willing to change.

recently i attended marriage of my dh's niece.the girl is IITian & IIBMian as was her to be but never stopped her parents from giving lots of dowry & jewellary simpliy because her father could afford & she wanted her inlaws (who were themself very well off ) to think that her parents are not less then anyone...............to think such educated couple(highly earning) would have more sense & would be eager to set example in society by having simple & no dowry marriage.........AND then we say that education will bring revolution..............HOW & WHEN.

after this marriage i am convinced dowry will never end from marriage scenerio in India.

pragati

 

So much has changed and will change over time. I mean, we need not be very pessimistic about the future of our society.
Every society evolves and has evolved over time and change in people's mentality.

So, keep a positive outlook and open mind. Things are changing for good.