In India why does the girls's family pay dowry?

[Ray]

@Ray,

Yes it was a lovely movie. There were other directors also that had the power of observation to make similar movies, adequately capturing the man-woman relationship in its varied forms. Those days are perhaps gone.

Now a Sallu shaking his pants is and short skirts is the epitome of all entertainment and all the essence of a man-woman relationship. And we must also protect the system that produces this because if we don't then we risk becoming Unglobalized Indian. Global Citizenship is more important than Indian shiti-jan-ship.

Anyhow my concern was more for thee practical aspects of ensuring a bunch of things using our existing social structure:
1) Adequate sexual contact without turning it all into a titillation of 30 year olds watching porn and stags hanging around outside pubs.
2) Adequate inter personal contact between young woman and young men where they both learn and teach each other, exactly how to take up responsibilities and become leaders of the social system as they grow
3) Have kids when they have adequate quantities of telomeres required to have a healthy cell division.
4) Have some financial way of making sure that these young men and women themselves do not end up becoming a drag on their parents and the society around.

Any system that does these is worthy of following.

Everyting that fails to do this and instead begins to talk a lot about 'rights and fundamental rights' without simultaneously talking of duties/responsibilities discharged towards the social system (not interpersonal contractual bovinecrap), must be dropped from practice.

Spot on.

That is the crux.

 

[Ray]

Look, you need to drop this "law is the ultimate morality nonsense". I already pointed it out but you dint get the point and you shouted it down using your authority. Right now, homosexuality is illegal by Indian law. So is it amoral for MSM to practice their sexual orientation?

Law =/= morality.

Just because dowry is banned as a law does not make it amoral.

Bully to you.

I am sure you will say that let us bring back Sutee.

If it is not amoral, then why was Dowry banned?

Actually there are two sides to this story - the story of groom's side and the story of the bride's side. But I am guessing people like you, .ie most women's right activists only look at the side of the bride and not that of the groom.

Why are the bride's family willing to marry the daughter off to the groom then? Is there a force involved? How about the bride's family say no to such bride groom? Why dont they go looking for a bridegroom who wont demand such things from the bride's family? So how about someone who demands lesser dowry than the groom you have in question? For example, lets say I demand 1 crore as dowry for my wife, and some one else demands only 10000Rs. as dowry, why don't the bride's father marry his daughter to the person demanding lesser dowry of 10000Rs. ? Surely, not every bridegroom demands a car?

I don't have to look for a groom who does not want dowry.

It has been a practice in my family for ages.

We want a bride, not a extra hand.

And we were never kangals

So, where is the need for dowry?

And people who make such asinine comments on cow belt because they are brainwashed into believing some ideas are superior are somehow better than cow belts how?

Asinine people who are kangals require money and gifts to keep themselves going.

 

[Khagesh]

Spot on.

That is the crux.

The part you highlighted is the part that I understood of how a Karmayogi is expected to do his Yagyan.

The rest is my attempt at achieving it for myself and people who think they are dependent on me or would like me to work for them. Basically the extra is all I have. For now.

Strange thing is a person I know says the exact same thing, but you have had a massive fight with him. OTOH the person you thought at that time was in agreement with you, probably hates my guts.

Crazy world. I love anonymity. Best of luck. :thumb:

 

[Mad Indian]

Bully to you.

I am sure you will say that let us bring back Sutee.

If it is not amoral, then why was Dowry banned?




I don't have to look for a groom who does not want dowry.

It has been a practice in my family for ages.

We want a bride, not a extra hand.

And we were never kangals

So, where is the need for dowry?




Asinine people who are kangals require money and gifts to keep themselves going.

1. Strawman argument. I dont subscribe to Sati. Now, you have also deflected from your original position that illegal=morally wrong

Next, as to why dowry was banned, because of the same reason why Anti harassment law was amended after the Nirbhaya rape case and the same reason why Hindu inheritance law was amended to give brides half of the ancesteral property of the groom after marriage- because the feminists?women's right activists were shouting in their shrill voice and got it passed. It has no relation to amoral. If it is amoral to get dowry, then it is equally amoral for the girl(bride) to get the husband's ancesteral property

As to why dowry is not amoral, I gave my reasoning. You have not argued against it.(I am guessing you have not counter to my argument)

2. Yes, you have time to search for a groom who asks for dowry but not a groom who does not ?

3. Nice try, but you made asinine comments on cow belt people on why they ask for dowry. Even now you are doing the same. This is classic adhominem attack. You should instead point out why their asking for dowry is bad(.ie their position) instead of shouting cowbelt(.ie their personality) is bad. Ad Homs indicate that the opponent has no valid point to debate.

 

[Mad Indian]

Strange thing is a person I know says the exact same thing, but you have had a massive fight with him. OTOH the person you thought at that time was in agreement with you, probably hates my guts.

Crazy world. I love anonymity. Best of luck. :thumb:

I seriously cant understand what you are saying. But to be clear that you are of the opinion that Dowry is not a black or white issue I take it?

 

[Bangalorean]

How is castism anyway related to supply and demand? Is there a caste with no men in them that they have to pay hefty dowry to get their girls married off? Your assumption that supply and demand is sqewed because of castism is false as all the castes have more or less equal proportion of men and women

Exactly. Nothing stopped the girl's family to marry their girl to someone who does not require any dowry. In my place, the dowry expectation for a software engineer is something aroung 100 sovereigns of gold and 1 lakh or 2 lakh rupees. There are also bridegrooms who have no jobs who takes no rupees as dowry. And I am talking about the same community

If the girl's parents find the 100 sovereign gold groom as immoral, they can always marry their girl off to the jobless dowry averse guy.

Its very rare for that to happen. Women always upmarry. You will see a lot of divorces in couple where the men earn lower than women. Its in their nature. You will see lot of divorces being initiated by women if they are earning more than their husband. The feeling that they could do better than the husband will settle in them

Caste system has nothing to do with any of this. I dont know why you think caste system is even relevent. Both men and women are likely to be at the same level of social mobility and economic mobility for a particular caste. Is there a caste which you know of , where the bride's family is exclusively poor and the groom's family is exclusively rich?

Dude, here is how it goes - if I marry a girl and get a good dowry, I wont ask her to sue her brothers for her part of the inheritance of family wealth. If I dont get dowry, then I should be entitled to her part of the inheritance of her family fortunes, just like how she is entitled to my share of my inheritance.

Again, this is the problem with thinking with a preset idea that something is bad or good. "Dowry is bad" is clouding your eyes to see this objectively

Caste system is relevant because:

It makes the "applicant pool" much smaller. In that example where a suitable boy offers to get married for a 1 crore dowry and another boy from a different caste offers to get married without dowry - the second boy is not part of the "selection pool" even if he is as suitable (biologically, physically, financially, etc.).

And its not that "dowry" (the practice of paying money during marriage from girl's family to newlywed couple) is "bad" per se. However, you cannot disagree that there have been an immense number of dowry deaths, harassment, etc. Biased laws like 498A were brought in, which totally screwed things up and have been misused like hell by middle-class females. And you cannot disagree that dowry is one of the driving causes towards female infanticide/foeticide, which in turn has fcuked up our sex ratio.

So, though "dowry" per se is not necessarily "bad", it has led to a lot of unintended consequences as mentioned above. What I want to know is the way forward, at least in theory (we aren't politicians anyway to get anything implemented). You proposed a supply-demand solution which in effect, legalizes dowry in a way, by binding legal agreement.

Another potential "solution" is the one that is prevalent in my community. Its a paradoxical situation actually. In my particular community, there is no dowry concept at least from 3 generations (though the girls' side is expected to handle almost all the marriage expenses). My father didn't take dowry, neither did my grandfather. As of today, my community does not have a single non-working uneducated girl I know of. There are very few. Men give preference to working women who can earn and share household expenses - that's a sort of recurring, ever-increasing "dowry" in a way. Getting married would be hellishly tough for an uneducated or 12th pass girl in my community even if she has enough dowry to pay. Most boys don't want that anymore (there are some exceptions, fast dwindling).

This is paradoxical because the example of my community reminds me of the "woman empowerment" discussion we were having yesterday. In the example of a archetypical "traditional society" which modernists mock, a woman can sit back and relax, and choose whether to study too much and take up a corporate/professional career or whether to let the husband run the house while pursuing a "housewife" life. In my community this option is not available to most women anymore! So I wonder if the woman has really been "empowered" by being forced to do B.E. or MBA or M.B.B.S or C.A. or B.Arch or M.Tech etc. etc. Food for thought.

 

[Mad Indian]

Caste system is relevant because:

It makes the "applicant pool" much smaller. In that example where a suitable boy offers to get married for a 1 crore dowry and another boy from a different caste offers to get married without dowry - the second boy is not part of the "selection pool" even if he is as suitable (biologically, physically, financially, etc.).

Actually no. Wrong argument, for smaller selection pool, there is also a smaller market. Smaller no. of males (sellers) in the market= smaller no. of females as the buyers in the market. I seriously thought you were just trolling when you brought caste into this issue. I dint think you were this serious

And its not that "dowry" (the practice of paying money during marriage from girl's family to newlywed couple) is "bad" per se. However, you cannot disagree that there have been an immense number of dowry deaths, harassment, etc. Biased laws like 498A were brought in, which totally screwed things up and have been misused like hell by middle-class females.

Actually, any case of harassment/death should be bad and should be punished by law. So why only single out dowry? The law should be gender neutral. The thing is, if you want to protect women getting raped at night, you should make it such that more police personnel are employed at night and correct justice is carried out. You dont win it by making it so that any complaint from a girl that she got raped at night is proof of crime until proven other wise. This is the way we have been dealing with dowry system too.

And you cannot disagree that dowry is one of the driving causes towards female infanticide/foeticide, which in turn has fcuked up our sex ratio.

And the best way to deal with it is to empower women in both "rights" and "responsibilities". That is make them equal in taking care of their parents. Most people consider women to be a burden because of the belief that women are not going to give them food and take care of them in the old age. This is a problem which arises from female previledge of not having to take care of their parents.

Make them understand that and show that in work, by making it possible for women to work in all places, then make it legally binding for them to take care of their parents, the same way boys take care of their parents(or obligated to take care of their parents). This is a gender neutral approach and will have a far better and long term solution to the female foeticide than moral posturing and passing gender specific laws. It might be slow, but it is a better way in every aspect than simply skewing the law against men.

This is the kind of discussion we should have when we pass any law. That is my point

So, though "dowry" per se is not necessarily "bad", it has led to a lot of unintended consequences as mentioned above. What I want to know is the way forward, at least in theory (we aren't politicians anyway to get anything implemented). You proposed a supply-demand solution which in effect, legalizes dowry in a way, by binding legal agreement.

Isn't that what I said?

Another potential "solution" is the one that is prevalent in my community. Its a paradoxical situation actually. In my particular community, there is no dowry concept at least from 3 generations (though the girls' side is expected to handle almost all the marriage expenses). My father didn't take dowry, neither did my grandfather. As of today, my community does not have a single non-working uneducated girl I know of. There are very few. Men give preference to working women who can earn and share household expenses - that's a sort of recurring, ever-increasing "dowry" in a way. Getting married would be hellishly tough for an uneducated or 12th pass girl in my community even if she has enough dowry to pay. Most boys don't want that anymore (there are some exceptions, fast dwindling).

I completely agree with this kind of solution. Note that this is also a gender neutral solution. There is no foul play here.

OTOH, think about it, if we bring in a law skewering men by making it so that married girl can inherit the groom's wealth to solve this dowry problem, then what will happen? Many women will start using it for gold digging. Men will get fed up and will stop marrying. The end losers will be the society.

This is paradoxical because the example of my community reminds me of the "woman empowerment" discussion we were having yesterday. In the example of a archetypical "traditional society" which modernists mock, a woman can sit back and relax, and choose whether to study too much and take up a corporate/professional career or whether to let the husband run the house while pursuing a "housewife" life. In my community this option is not available to most women anymore! So I wonder if the woman has really been "empowered" by being forced to do B.E. or MBA or M.B.B.S or C.A. or B.Arch or M.Tech etc. etc. Food for thought.

Its not paradoxical at all. Tradition =/= stupidity. For ex. person who acknowledges that in modern day, women working is cool and might be necessary in some cases but on the other hand would prefer his wife to be educated but not working because he thinks that his children are the most important part of his life and makes it so that his wife should take care of the children when he earns the more than enough money for the home to be successful is still a traditionalist. Note that in pre independant India, women did work- be it in the household rearing of cattle and other works or be it in the fields to help their husbands during the times of harvest, if they could afford to both take care of their family and help their husband at the same time. Thats perfect harmony - both husband and wife working for the betterment of the children(.ie the future of the society).

A mullah who wont allow his wife to work even if it will result in betterment of his family life just because his holy book says so is stupid.

 

[Mad Indian]

So, though "dowry" per se is not necessarily "bad", it has led to a lot of unintended consequences as mentioned above. What I want to know is the way forward, at least in theory (we aren't politicians anyway to get anything implemented). You proposed a supply-demand solution which in effect, legalizes dowry in a way, by binding legal agreement.

I am sorry I missed that. The problem with the present form of dowry legislation is that it completely puts the blame of dowry on the boy's side.

Let me give you a hypothetical question, so lets have a groom who is a software engineer earning Rs.40000 per month and has a property of 10 lakhs of property on his name. Now, is it wrong for him to expect a wife who is equally earning well and is equally rich?

If we are about gender equality, should he not have the same right as that of the girl?

 

[Bangalorean]

@Mad Indian, I get what you are saying. I am all for gender-neutral laws combined with massive encouragement and push for women to work and earn a living, to enable what you call "rights as well as responsibilities" in women.

Its true that historically, women have also worked - hell, they still do in rural areas in most cases. They need to do it as a matter of necessity. As society modernizes and we become a predominantly industrial/services economy, women have to take up other kinds of jobs like in IT companies, call centers, lawyers, doctors, even civil engineers supervising labourers (!) for those who have the guts.

 

[Bangalorean]

I am sorry I missed that. The problem with the present form of dowry legislation is that it completely puts the blame of dowry on the boy's side.

Let me give you a hypothetical question, so lets have a groom who is a software engineer earning Rs.40000 per month and has a property of 10 lakhs of property on his name. Now, is it wrong for him to expect a wife who is equally earning well and is equally rich?

If we are about gender equality, should he not have the same right as that of the girl?

Yes, so I realize why you said that the "solution" that I described of my community is a good one. A woman earning upto Rs. 30000 per month and having 6 lakh property in her name will do nicely for the above-mentioned software engineer.

So in effect, if we follow this model, the onus is on the girl (the individual) to study, get an education, perform well and achieve an independent status in life, to get good boys.

Of course, there will be exceptions like extremely beautiful ravishing girls with model/actress level of beauty. Those girls will probably have it easy, there will be less pressure on them - but then, those are outliers, so we can probably ignore those cases.

 

[DingDong]

Several women make pre-marriage demands from the grooms' family to ask for "so much and so much" for her as dowry from her parents.

I have witnessed it in person during my cousin's marriage. She even tried to humiliate her brother for not being able to arrange for additional demands. The poor guy had to take personal loan.

 

[Ray]

1. Strawman argument. I dont subscribe to Sati. Now, you have also deflected from your original position that illegal=morally wrong

Next, as to why dowry was banned, because of the same reason why Anti harassment law was amended after the Nirbhaya rape case and the same reason why Hindu inheritance law was amended to give brides half of the ancesteral property of the groom after marriage- because the feminists?women's right activists were shouting in their shrill voice and got it passed. It has no relation to amoral. If it is amoral to get dowry, then it is equally amoral for the girl(bride) to get the husband's ancesteral property

As to why dowry is not amoral, I gave my reasoning. You have not argued against it.(I am guessing you have not counter to my argument)

2. Yes, you have time to search for a groom who asks for dowry but not a groom who does not ?

3. Nice try, but you made asinine comments on cow belt people on why they ask for dowry. Even now you are doing the same. This is classic adhominem attack. You should instead point out why their asking for dowry is bad(.ie their position) instead of shouting cowbelt(.ie their personality) is bad. Ad Homs indicate that the opponent has no valid point to debate.

As usual nothing to the point but blather.

 

[sgarg]

We have done significant research on Vedic customs and the finding is that the current system of dowry is driven by greed and show and was not at all a part of Vedic life.

Vedic marriage is a two hours 'agnihotra', is conducted at bride's home; and involves no processions and bands.

There was a tradition of giving gifts at the time of marriage but this is absolutely voluntary. Vedic society laid huge emphasis on noble qualities of both man and woman.

The entry of greed and pomp and show is a rather recent entrant to Indian culture, perhaps import from foreign societies and adapted.

 

[sgarg]

The Vedic marriage DOES NOT involve either giving or receiving a dowry.

However the system of inheritance of property in Vedic system is from Father to Son; and in case there is no son - from Father-in-law to Son-in-law. The women did not inherit the land. This is the reason gifts received by a woman at the time of marriage (or later) is called stree-dhan. Women naturally attach value to precious jewelry due to this Indian custom of passing of immovable property from father to son.

 

[rockey 71]

Dowry is a curse prevalent in SA.But there are now laws against this.Strong voices have been raised in societies.Obviously I am referring to typical rural society where adequate emancipation hasn't occurred as yet. But happily it's coming.

 

[Mad Indian]

As usual nothing to the point but blather.

Whatever Ray, people can decide for themselves on who is making hot air and who is talking sense.

 

[Ray]

Whatever Ray, people can decide for themselves on who is making hot air and who is talking sense.

Correct.

See the number of 'Likes' against my name and check it with yours.

Well said, it is so evident, right?

Don't get, what Americans like to say, 'smartassed' and 'cute'.

You only get exposed and your attitude to blather gets endorsed.

 

[Mad Indian]

I have witnessed it in person during my cousin's marriage. She even tried to humiliate her brother for not being able to arrange for additional demands. The poor guy had to take personal loan.

The thing is, dowry unfavorably favors the women in a poor/middle class society than it does in the rich, in absence of any inheritance on the woman's part.

For ex., lets say that a rich man with a son and a daughter having an asset of 10crores is marrying off his daughter and that he is marrying her off to a fellow rich man. Now, most probably he would be paying his daughter a dowry of 200sovereigns gold and 1 crore rupees worth of cash, with cars house etc(I am taking the market value of the dowry in the present day in my state and locality). Now calculate the value of 200 sovereigns of gold- it will be 48 lakh rupees. So in essence, the rich man is giving her daughter 48Lakh rupees as her inheritance, while his son gets to keep his remaining 8.5crore rupees worth of assets as inheritance

Now , compare a scenerio involving lower middle class - a man having a net worth of 20 lakh rupees and has a son and a daughter. Now, if he marries his daughter off to a fellow middle class man, then the usual dowry would be 50 sovereigns of gold and some 2lakhs of cash or something similiar- now you will have the daughter getting an inheritance of 14lakhs worth of inheritance from her father and her brother will keep only 6lakhs of his father's properties

The scenerio will be even more tilted for the girls born to poor people, with sometimes the girls taking almost all of the assets of the family as her dowry.

Since, in most cases in India, the middle class and poor consititute the majority, I fail to see how this lopsided dowry system where the women get to enjoy too much wealth from their fathers on average is oppressive of women.

 

[Mad Indian]

Correct.

See the number of 'Likes' against my name and check it with yours.

Well said, it is so evident, right?

Don't get, what Americans like to say, 'smartassed' and 'cute'.

You only get exposed and your attitude to blather gets endorsed.

Check "within" this thread on how many like you have got for your posts and compare it with mine. So far, I have more likes than you in this thread and so I am right in this thread and you are wrong.

So your argument fails by even your logic

 

[TheLord]

That rationale is no longer valid that dowry is just bringing her part of the wealth when starting a family, for she is not entitled to inheritance to her family fortunes like her "brothers".

Here is why:

Your argument is valid only, if the girl files a partition suit in a court. Even the court will consider the dowry as her share, while considering the partion of property. This only hapens only, if girls give much importance to money than her parents & brothers.

In a tradiotional way, the dowry is a way of giving a fair share of her property.

Apart from the dowry given during marriage, there are other seers from brothers of the girl ( or parents ) begining from the ear piercing of her child to the their marriage and also Diwali & Pongal seer every year.