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

Discussion in 'Married Life' started by Prettina, Apr 29, 2010.

  1. deepagopalan

    deepagopalan Gold IL'ite

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    hey pretty you know very well ours was love cum arrange,we married on both side tradition,keral style marriage we took responsibilty and maharastrian style marriage DH family took responsibility so we didt had any issue,since am working i didn't allow my parents to spend,i took 70% of expenditure myself arranging stage,food,jewelery,purschasing dress for family etc,my parents spend 30% they are proud of me,my dh family was happy that it was more then the expectation,it didnt seem like love marriage.i hate dowry i didt give them any single penny,i investment every money in gold.hehehheheheheh

    :cheers
    deepu
     
  2. Malyatha

    Malyatha Gold IL'ite

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    Does anyone else see the other problem with this logic? Parents choosing as DILs girls who have NO brothers so that the DIL would inherit her parents' properties???

    The fact that girls with brothers do not get to inherit parental properties is the reason that dowry evolved in the first place. This was the parents' way of providing for their daughters in the event that they were widowed or abandoned by their husbands. While we now have laws against dowries and we call for daughters to have the right to inherit property on par with the sons of the family, the mentality is STILL that the sons get everything and the daughters get NOTHING unless there are no sons in the family.

    So, abolishing dowry goes hand-in-hand with enforcing the daughters' right to inherit parental properties. If not, then dowry can never be abolished - in fact it would be UNFAIR for dowry to be abolished as we are preventing daughters from getting ANYTHING from their parents!!! Sons (and their wives) happily take all!!!


    What does this have to do with who his father picked as his bride? Are you saying that you only help people with their educations if they live / marry by your rules???? That you would not have helped someone with his education, if you had known that his bride would have been an only child with lot of parental assets?

    I don't see anything wrong with this. The sammandis watch out for each other since their children are abroad. And, generally, the boys' parents tend to be older than the girls' parents - my brothers' PILs are all younger (one couple MUCH YOUNGER) than my parents - but it was never intended. It just so happens that if the girl is younger than the boy, then her parents invariably tend to be younger than the boy's parents, as well. Would you have a problem if the girls' parents were older than the boys' parents and the boy's parents took care of the DIL's parents????

    You seem to be quite judgmental. If the sammandis are close, then why do YOU have an issue with it? And, if the DIL's parents willingly pay for the son's parents, what is your problem with it???
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2010
  3. Gooseberry

    Gooseberry Senior IL'ite

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    Malyatha: I admire your way of thinking. Good job!!:)

    According to me, in this whole dowry issue, as long as it is not forced on the girl's parents and they give it willingly as a gift to their daughter, it is fine. What is wrong in dad gifting his daughter on her wedding?? If it is dictated from the boy's side and the girl's dad is drowning in debt then I consider it a crime.
     
  4. mstrue

    mstrue New IL'ite

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    :exactly::iagree:yes:
     
  5. Malyatha

    Malyatha Gold IL'ite

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    Danks ma!!! :rotfl



    :yes:
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2010
  6. Peperoncino

    Peperoncino New IL'ite

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    But is it not then going back to square one? That is, the dowry system started with being "voluntary", as a sort of gift that is for the daughter to keep, and somehow it spiralled out of control to become obligatory (granted, not in all cases).

    Meaning there is a fine line between "willing" and "expected", and willing can turn out to be obligatory.

    Good point about the link between dowry and inheritance preferences.

    So, what is it then that is preventing the parents from bequeathing their wealth to their daughters as they would to their sons? Is it because sons are expected to look after their parents in the latter's old age but not daughters? Is it because daughters, once married, are no longer considered to be part of their original family, but rather her obligations lie with that of her husband's?

    I once read on another thread where a poster said the advantages of being a girl are "getting the wedding trousseau and not expected to look after her parents in their old age".

    Perhaps this sums up neatly the mentality of the society in question in general and why daughters don't get included in the parents' will. And unless both sons and daughters are stopped being viewed differently in terms of their value to their parents, this inheritance problem, and thus the issue of dowry, will remain.

    It is important to focus on the cause of the problem (unequal treatment and expectations of sons and daughters), and treat it, rather than fixing just the symptoms (inheritance laws, dowry system) themselves.
     
  7. Malyatha

    Malyatha Gold IL'ite

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    You have already answered your questions here, don't you think?

    The poster was talking through the back of his or her head then. How on Earth does the value of a wedding trousseau equal the value of the parents' entire estate??? What about the top-of-the-line educations that sons are afforded (often with parents even willingly going into debt to fund these educations) while daughters are either given mediocre education or permitted professional education only if they secure these at competitive government institutions??? Can there even be an equal to sign between these extra-ordinarily disproportionate treatments???

    As for the argument that daughters don't need to 'take care' of their parents - in reality, the daughters are the ones that are there for their parents when they need them the most, many times with the husbands' blessings. Many sons & DILs are nowhere to be seen when the parents get older (often times because of MIL - DIL problems) so the daughters step in to provide emotional and physical support for their aging, sick parents. In many cases, employed daughters even provide financial support to their elderly parents with their husbands' backing. So, the argument that the daughters are NOT expected to provide support MAY be theoretically correct, but, in practice, the daughters are the ones who provide this support, while the sons waltz in to enjoy the parents' assets after their time.

    How do we do this????

    It is quite obvious to most people that the root of the problem is the patriarchal system that views daughters as burdens and sons as assets. However, it will take at least another generation for this mindset to be changed - in fact, it is changing now with most people born in Gen X and younger, not really subscribing to the age old patriarchal and misogynistic norms. In the meantime, the symptoms need to be fixed in the here and now, so that present-day young women are not denied their fair share of their parents' inheritances, and the only way to do this is to do so legally.
     
  8. Malavika81

    Malavika81 Bronze IL'ite

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    I think this thread has taken an interesting turn to justify dowry as a girl's gift. There is nothing wrong with parents giving gifts to their daughters and we are not discussing about those situations.

    This has to do with dowry being demanded by the bridegroom's family as a prerequisite for marriage and most of us are condemning that act (or atleast I thought so). Actually the bolded part of your quote would be the case most of us are trying to address and this has nothing to do with voluntary gifts by parents to daughters at the time of wedding (Would that still be called Dowry? Wouldn't that be a gift to the daughter?).

    Women should have equal stake in property and be treated equally by parents and I think we can all agree on that. But your husband's family demanding dowry as a compensation for all parental services rendered from childhood to marriage is what most of us have a problem with. And in most cases where dowry is demanded, I think the women is not seen as a wife but a cashpoint machine by the bridegroom's parents and the bridegroom.
    This gets particularly worse when the bride's parents cannot meet the demands of groom&co but somehow have to come up with the money in order to get the daughter married because giving money to marry your daughter is the social norm.

    There is nothing wrong with parents offering gifts to daughters during marriage and no one here is condemning that( or so I thought). Most of us are condemning the act of dowry demand by the bridegroom's family in order to marry the girl and that to me is nothing more than horse trading.
     
  9. lotusgirl

    lotusgirl Senior IL'ite

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    giving the daughters equal rights is not going to change the dowry system.. For that the dowry laws should be made more stringent and people demanding & giving dowry really looked down as people who are not worth your salt!!

    The reason i say so is atleast 1 indian state i know, male & femaile children have had equal rights to inheritance for atleast a generation and more.. The Hindus had it in place for a long time and the Christians had a law passed on this sometime in the 1980's which made it a must that the female childran have equal rights.. That has not caused any decrease in the Dowry market!
    They even have market values for each educational degree & job thats held by the groom irrespective of what the fiancial status of the bride & groom is! Its that pathetic! Oh even if the girl holds an MBA & guy is an Eng, then she still has to give the market value for an eng to get married to the guy!! well you shud know engineers are cheaper to get than Docs who are again cheaper compared to a civil servant!!
    i know of 1 instance that a dowry was not given by the brides father saying whatever he owned would be equally given to her & her brother. The grooms family who had got all their girls married off with Dowry agreed to this quite decently too!! & the regional & religous custom followed by them are very staunchly into Dowry.. So it is known to happen..so why not more ppl have the guts to do whats right for their children???
    The dowry system is silently accepted by the church too in our place, afterall a % of the dowry is supposed to be given to the church.. Why is that not changing now ? Oh even the guys share to the church is borne by the girls family in many a cases!!
    Even higly educated people dont think twice of the whole thing becuase its the NORM.
     
  10. Gooseberry

    Gooseberry Senior IL'ite

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    I think we all agree that dowry is a social evil in our society.

    And Malavika, I don't think anyone is trying to justify it here.
     

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