A Theoretical Perspective on Dowry Deaths in India

In certain communities in South Asia, the low status of girls has to be compensated for by the payment of a dowry by the parents of the girl to the husband at the time of marriage. This has resulted in a number of dowry crimes, including mental and physical torture, starvation, rape, and even the burning alive of women by their husbands and/or in-laws in cases where dowry payments are not met.

In the book, Arranged Marriage, by Chitra Divakaruni there are multiple stories that demonstrate arranged marriages from within the Indian culture. In some cases, arranged marriages work out better than others. However, in the short stories in her book, most don’t work out positively. In the short stories, “The Bats” and “The Disappearance”, the arranged marriages don’t work out. Chitra Divakaruni’s viewpoint on arranged marriages is clearly negative, due to violence, and the effect on children.

Bride burning, also known as dowry death occurs quite frequently in India. It is when the husband or the in-laws decide that the dowry the bride offers is not enough and demands more. If the bride refuses or is financially not able to increase her dowry, she is tortured until she either agrees or dies; otherwise she is murdered by her “family”. The husbands and the in-laws usually disguise the deaths as accidents or

Past Indian governments have accepted the damaging effects of dowries towards women and made it illegal through the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, yet the policy broadly defined the punishable aspect of the practice making it difficult to enforce (Shenk, 2007). As a result of the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 failing in implementation, the Indian Government passed two amendments in the 1980’s. The changes increased the severity of punishment, and made the demand of a dowry illegal that

This joint family, like any social organization, must face problems such as acceptable division of work, relationships and specific family roles. These familial relationships are managed on the basis of a secular hierarchical principle. In fact, all Indians owe respect and obedience to the head of the family, who usually is the father or the oldest man of the family community. In The Gift of a Bride: A Tale of Anthropology, Matrimony and Murder by Nanda and Gregg, it is explained that, “females [are] placed under the perpetual guardianship of first their fathers and elder brothers, then their husbands.” (Nanda & Gregg 22) Thus, all the spending decisions, studies and profession, or marriage, are exclusively the responsibility of the father after the possible discussions with the other men of the family. Age and sex are the basic principles of this hierarchical system. The eldest sons enjoy greater unchallenged authority than their cadets. Of course men have more authority than women, but older married women have an important role within the family. In fact, the authority of a woman depends on the rank of her husband inside the group. Traditionally, the wife of the patriarch rules over domestic affairs and has considerable power over the other women in the community, especially her daughters- in-law.

In the UN article they talk about an increased in number of dowry murders especially in south Asia. Furthermore, this same point is tackled on by MacKinnon where she says that you cannot say that women are human if they are still being burned when their dowry is not enough. Consequently, the above views all enforcing the fact that women are killed when their dowry was not enough; reinforce violation against

In the chapter in says, “spend 500 rupees today and save 500,000 rupees later” (p. 174). The reason most people in India do not want a female child is because of the dowry system. I understand that it is a part of their culture, but if everybody wants to benefit from the dowry and nobody want to pay it, then what is the point of having a dowry system? Females are not the problem; the problem is that dowry payments are too high. The dowry system should be abolished or there should be a fixed amount that the bride’s family has to give to the groom’s

Marriage in Britain was a largely independent affari compared to India where, once married, the wife would proceed to live with her husband and his family. The consequence of changes to inheritance law was that, while in Britain a widow’s choice was to either keep the meager inheritance she got and enjoy her independence or remarry and share the money with her new husband, in India things got far more complicated because of deep seated notions of marriage and widowhood that hinged on unequivocally Indian norms, values and culture. If a woman were to receive money under the change in law there would be significant resentment from her late husband’s family. The widow had a high chance of still living with his family resulting in a cloistered but not sheltered existence. Sexuality and autonomy were often controlled by the families based on notions of female sexuality and as a way of preserving caste and offspring. Despite this Indian women were often sexually active, although more often than not, there was a lack of consent. Moreover, remarriage was not a viable option for most widows as the deeply rooted Hinduism in India promoted notions of ‘ascetic widowhood’. Thus slowly, almost as a reaction to the British hijacking on Indian culture and law, customary laws began to be replaced by a far more Hindu

Parent understand that their girls are a burden and their sons are a gift, and this is what their sons and daughters grow up believing. The dowry placed on girls plays greatly into the sex-selected abortion rate in India. Boys are plainly and simply a better financial investment. Boys will not cost the parents money for marriage, in fact, with a marriage, they are guaranteed to make the parents money. Parents forced with the decision to have a girl and deal with the financial consequences, or abort and hope and pray for better luck in the gender of their child next time around. Quite often they chose the

In Provoked and “The Disappearance” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, they describe how the Indian women leave their native country and immigrate to Western countries due to the arranged marriage that they have no rights to choose. Although the Indian women try to learn and integrate into Western culture, their husbands expect them to be a traditional Indian woman who should stay home and take care of the children, certainly isolated from mainstream society. If the Indian women try to rebel or challenge their husband’s authority, they are subject to their husband’s abuse in the fact of their machismo culture. This is because men try to retain their authority in the household as well as their status in the house. Men sometimes needed to take a step back and make a concession toward women by learning to respect women’s choice. This is because everyone has a different cultural background that shapes how one behaves and acts in the society based on his or her social group. If men offer freedom to their women, they will be able to retain their authority in the household.

According to Prasad and Ramesh (2007), Indians believe that a son is an asset that can bring wealth to a family. Arranged marriage is accepted and marriage is an important institution in Indian culture. A girl is seen as a burden to her family and will leave the family in debt of a dowry. Wedlock creates inequality that women’s

Sikh Marriage Introduction Expect among some westernised subgroups in the larger Indian cities social mixing between the sexes is restricted, even in co-educational schools. Also, the joint or extended family system is still the Indian norm. It is in this context, which can only be referred to in passing in this piece of coursework, that Sikh marriage must be understood. Marriage, traditionally, is not a private matter between two persons. Through the couple two families become closely connected and into one family comes a stranger, the wife.

The World Health Organization states that globally, about 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner. In the Middle East and other parts of the world, planned domestic homicides, or honor killings, are carried out due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community. According to Human Rights Watch, honor killings are generally performed against women for "refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or committing adultery," or exhibiting behavior perceived to have dishonored the family. In some parts of the world, where there is a strong social expectation for a woman to be a virgin prior to marriage, a bride may be subjected to extreme violence, including an honor killing, if she is deemed not to be a virgin on her wedding night due to the absence of blood. Bride burning or dowry killing is a form of domestic violence in which a newly married woman is killed at home by her husband or husband's family due to their dissatisfaction over the dowry provided by her family. The act is often a result of demands for more or prolonged dowry after the marriage. Dowry violence is most common in South Asia, especially in India. In 2011, the National Crime Records Bureau reported 8,618 dowry

In India, marriage is a mean that relies on the parents' decisions. For example, Marriages in India are arranged marriages, they are forcing two people to get married. Marriages in this country is not a relationship of love for two people, but a connection between two families. Moreover, in this type of arranged marriage, the husband and wife have never met each other, and they have to live as a lifetime term with a partner that they don’t even know before. Indian family said that “Their kids will love and understand each other when they spend time to live together. Even though the arrangement of marriage in some countries

It is regrettable that female infanticide and foeticide are rapidly decreasing the female population throughout India. The main factors that is responsible for the increase in the incidence of female infanticide and foeticide is the low status of women, son preference, and the practice of dowry across all casts groups.