Evils of Dowry
By Gopichand
Ours is a male dominated society. Women have been relegated to a secondary place of marginal importance in the family. She has been reduced to a thing, not a human being.
The recent spate in the cases of bride burning exposes the hollowness of our social and cultural system. The torture of married women and cases of bride burning is rampant in lower middle class urban families.
The birth of a female child is still considered to be a burden on the parents. Giving a young girl in marriage has never been an easy thing. It is a very long practice to give a hefty dowry to the bridegroom and his parents so that they may give a respectable place to the bride in the family.
Beauty, good features, cultures and qualification may be important but a fat dowry overweighs all these considerations. Even in the modern world where women are marching ahead in all walks of life, the evil practice of the dowry system continues.
The greedy in-laws settle the amount of dowry before fixing the date of marriage. Naked materialism and consumerism have only weighted the appetite of the dowry seekers. The dowry amount depends upon the social and economic status of the prospective bridegrooms. Demand for cars, motor-bike, music system, LCD, costly furniture and utensils is growing in the marriage market. But still the greed of dowry seekers remains unsatisfied. Bride burning is not a rare phenomenon in India.
The Anti-Dowry Act, 1976 must be given more teeth for eradicating this social stigma. The dowry seekers should be socially boycotted and must be given exemplary punishment. The public and voluntary organizations should come forward to root out this evil practice from our society.