Dowry is when the bride's family give some sort of materialistic items to the groom's family, which is believed to be the payment for taking care of their daughter throughout their marital life. An endowment can be in the form of money, adornments, furniture, property and other tangible items. It is a common practice in India since centuries. This essay illustrates the ill effects of dowry system in India.
Dowry-linked violence frequently emerges when the bridegroom or his family fish unabating payments or more goods and the bride’s family is incapable or unwilling to pay. Physical violence, marital rape, acid attacks, and burning their wife are the most common forms of dowry-related violence. The violator may also use other ways of oppression, including starvation, deprivation of clothing, and false incarceration. They often use violence masked as suicides or mishaps, for example, stove or kerosene fiascos, to burn or murder women for failing to fulfill endowment demands. The bride may also commit suicide due to mental and physical harassment which is considered murder in dowry terms. 7,621 dowry deaths were reported by the Indian National Crime Record Bureau in 2016, it is approximately 20 deaths per day. For example, my grandmother’s neighbor strangulated their daughter in law to death as she failed to meet their dowry demands, she was only 26 years old.
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Dowry system is a major contributor to the gender imbalance in India. According to the Guardian, there is a link found between the changes in worldwide gold cost and the survival rates of girl infants. Investigators have found that the females born in India when the global gold cost is rising are more likely to be aborted or killed in their primary month of life. An additional of 13,000 infant deaths among girls each year has been estimated between 1972 and 1985 due to a 1% increase in gold prices. Women are considered as a financial burden on a family, many parents abort girls or kill them after birth. This leads to both the continuous devaluing of women and a huge gender gap. The much-detested practices like abortion of female embryo and killing of girl babies have led to a disparity in child sex ratio in India. In some states of India such as Haryana and Rajasthan where these practices are most common, the child sex ratio stands at 830 girls per 1000 boys. For example, the village that my grandfather grew up in, there were more sons in a household than daughters. The people in the village viewed the girl babies as a burden and would kill them at birth by throwing them in the river.
One of the ill effects of the dowry system in India is injustice towards girls. The dowry brings about an enormous indebtedness for the bride’s family. Therefore, the girl child is considered as a potential cause of depreciation to the family’s finances. This perspective advances into an immense extent taking the form of infanticides and feticides of the female infant. Women are very often overlooked within the sphere of education whereas boys of the family are favored. The female children are compelled towards domestic chores from an early age itself. They are several obligated restrictions which are to be followed in the name of family honor and they are required to stay indoors at all times. Child marriages are still conducted as age is measured as an index of purity. It also stems the idea that young women are often better shaped into house roles than older women. For example, while I was in school in India, one of my sister's classmates who was from Haryana was engaged at a tender age of merely 15. After she completed her schooling, she was married off.
In a nutshell, the ill effects of dowry system in India are violence against women, gender imbalance and injustice towards girls. Although it is the 21st century this issue still persists widely in India. I feel that the dowry system only cause misery for the girl and her family. Dowry system can only be eradicated from society if the mentality of the people changes which begins with basic education.
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