Reference – off the beaten tract – rethinking gender justice for Indian women – Madhu Kishwar
The practice of dowry has drawn a great deal of criticism in the last century or so among the socially influential urban-educated middle-classes in India, and has come to be identified as one of the key aspects of Indian women’s oppression. The opponents of dowry base their critique on the fact that the pressure of providing dowry for daughters makes daughters appear burdensome, and therefore unwanted. Dowry is condemned for being an economic burden on parents. Yet dowry opponents seldom base their criticism on sensible economic calculations. This article focuses on just such calculations. It ignores the no less important cultural and social dimensions of dowry, some of which have been covered in other pieces of my writing in the issue. The middle-and upper-class families, who are also among the most articulate critics of the institution of dowry. They continue to decry it as a social evil even though they have emerged as the trend-setters in escalating the scale of dowry.

In many societies, dowry-giving does not worsen women’s lives, but in India, tussles over dowry payments have become a major source of conflict between families. Dowry requirements are used another excuse for viewing daughters as a burden. All forms of violence against daughters, including female infanticide and the growing practice of aborting female fetuses after amniocentesis, have been attributed to the economic burden that a daughter is said to represent.

However, dowry payments are not the cause of women’s devaluation and oppression. These payments do not by themselves transform girls into burdens to their parents. For instance, all those parents who happily pay lakhs of rupees as capitation fee to get their sons admitted to medical or engineering colleges, or provide money for their sons’ business investments, do not think of sons as ‘burden-some’. Dowry makes daughters ‘burdensome’ only because daughters are unwanted to begin with.

Dowry vs Stridhan


Some of the defenders of dowry payments justify the custom by depicting it as a form of pre-mortem inheritance. According to this interpretation, daughters, unlike sons, don’t have to wait until their father’s death to get their share of inherited property. Instead, they get their share at the time of marriage.

Traditionally, stridhan was considered a woman’s own inalienable property over which she had full and absolute right. Stridhan was supposed to pass from mother to daughter and not travel via the male line, as does most other property. Dowry payments as currently made, however, are rarely considered female-owned or inherited property. They are made to the groom’s family as a token of gratitude for accepting the girl into their family, and for allowing her natal family to get rid of her.

The Dowry Prohibition Act, which outlaws dowry payments, also provides that in cases where the marriage breaks down, dowry payments must be returned, arguing that dowry payments should be considered as stridhan. However, return of dowry payments have become highly problematic in a world where they are seen as unconditional gifts to the groom and his family.

In conformity with the Victorian norms they were familiar with, the British legislated that land entitlements be given to ‘male heads of the family’, by passing the customary laws which allowed various categories of entitlements to women. This concentrated property in the hands of men in an unprecedented way and paved the way for the disinheritance of women. In addition, the rapacious land revenue demands drained large amounts of the economic surplus from the rural economy. It made the peasants extremely cash poor. The destruction of traditional crafts pushed large sections of impoverished artisan groups back to a total reliance on their small landholdings, and the consequent increasing pressure on land bestowed a special power and status on those who owned land.

However, with rural society and artisan groups becoming extremely cash poor, the tradition of stridhan seems to have become burdensome. The traditional view of daughters as paraya dhan (someone else’s wealth) achieved a new and deadlier meaning. The term paraya dhan had the connotation of viewing women as wealth. This is an apt description in a society in which women carried their stridhan with them-property that was theirs by right.

In many traditional rural communities of Asia and Africa, paying bride-price was the norm, as is still the case in some tribal pockets of India. Bride-price is a way of compensating the woman’s natal family for the loss of an adult woman’s labour power, which in most agricultural societies is considered a valuable asset. However, as land becomes scare and population pressure increases, as happened with the colonization of India, possession of land becomes the all-important asset. If, in such a situation, ownership of land is vested exclusively in the hands of men, women begin to be treated like mere dependents and considered liabilities, rather that assets, as are sons.

New power centres

The increase in dowry payments is also related to certain other trends which marginalized women’s lives in an unprecedented manner. Following the establishment of a new administrative machinery in the nineteenth century, women’s economic worth was downgraded with the creation of new power centres outside of the traditional peasant economy. The new jobs and opportunities created by the colonial machinery provided avenues for rapid economic advancement and political power, in a way that working or owning small or average holdings of land never did.

Dowry Variations

The contemporary marriage economy reflects this power equation fairly accurately. For instance, the amount of dowry required to get a police officer groom for one’s daughter is far more than for making a match with an engineer in a private firm. All those government job holders whose power invites hefty bribes, such as income tax, excise and customs, or IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers, are offered the biggest dowries.

Income Gap

Even women professionals are seen as salary earners and no more. Their salaries alone do not bring them at a par with their husbands, because this small flow of money gets pooled in along with the husband’s earnings for current consumption. The husband’s position is far more solid due to his expected inheritance. He is likely to get in one stroke, much more than she is likely to save or earn in a lifetime.

Disinherited Daughters


Disinheritance of daughters by their family is the crux of the problem. The share women acquire in their marital family’s property is not allotted to them in their own right, but comes to them through their husbands.

The Hindu Succession Act, however, under the guise of giving women equal rights, has in fact lost them some of those traditional guarantees.

1. The deliberate inclusion of the provision allowing a person to will away property in whosoever’s favour they prefer. This is alien to traditional Hindu customary laws. This provision has been used to enable fathers to altogether disinherit their daughters by writing their will in favour of sons only.

2. Giving sons a right by birth in Hindu joint family property, while daughters are allowed a nominal and uncertain share in joint family property held by males as coparceners.
Women in the Modern Economy

While sons cannot be disinherited even by the father in the Hindu joint family coparcenary property, there is no similar guarantee for daughter’s rights. Thus, our modern inheritance laws have increasingly moved in favour of men and against the interests of women. The few communities which practiced matrilineal inheritance, such as the Nairs and Moplahs of Kerala, have been steadily moving towards patrilineal inheritance. With the modernization of the Indian economy, property is today much more heavily concentrated in the hands of men.

Changing Marriage Patterns

The Dowry Prohibition Act certainly did not succeed in curbing the practice of dowry payments, it enabled the transaction to be hidden more easily. Currently, dowry payments are more surreptitious due to the illegality of making them, as well as to the pressure to hide one’s wealth from tax authorities. Therefore, it becomes harder for the woman’s family to establish what they gave in the face of conflicting claims.

Higher dowries now go to grooms with a higher earning capacity even if they are of lower social or gotra status.

With the spread of geographic mobility in urban areas, marriages are increasingly being arranged through matrimonial ads and other modern institutions of match-making where families largely unknown to each other enter into marriage alliances. This anonymity has contributed a great deal to downgrading the importance of non-economic factors such as ’sharafat’ (goodness and honesty), the personal qualities of the groom, and the social respect commanded by the family. All those factors tend to be overshadowed by the economic criteria, provided the match is broadly speaking within the same caste. In the terminology of marriage advertisements, a ‘respectable’ family promising a ‘decent’ marriage is dropping a hint that they will pay a handsome dowry.

An extravagant dowry acts as a confirmation of the family’s social standing, and enhances their izzat. A small dowry is viewed as a social insult both for the receiving and the giving family.
Since one of the key determinations of the dowry payment amount is the perceived economic status of the groom’s family, families which seek upward mobility through marriage alliances are usually the ones who pay more exorbitant dowries. Even among the peasantry, the land and other assets which sons inherit are worth much more than daughter’s dowries. But even a modestly paid salaried employee will leave his sons much more than his daughters. Even if he leaves nothing more than a moderate house, the value of that property would far exceed that given to daughters as dowry.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, social reformers in India placed much more emphasis on the maltreatment of women as wives and sought to strengthen their position in their marital homes without strengthening their rights as daughters. We have failed to pay sufficient attention to the fact that women’s parents leave them at the mercy of other families and do not think of equipping them financially for their future lives as they do for their sons. The disinheritance of women is caused and supported by a culture which does not treat daughters as full members of their natal families. A daughter continuing to stay with her parents after her marriage is considered a social disgrace.

In the Parent’s Own Interest

Secure inheritance rights for daughters are desirable not just from the woman’s point of view. Old parents benefit no less from it. In cultures where daughters are routinely disinherited, families are more stringently patrilocal and the responsibility of taking care of old parents falls to the sons, who have to rely on their wives to provide much of the day-to-day care. This leaves old parents at the mercy of someone who is a new entrant to the family and, therefore, does not have the same emotional attachment to her husband’s parents. Too often, daughters-in-law consider this an unwanted liability. As a result, most parents who are financially well-off and keep their property under their own control-with the subtle threat of disinheritance if they are treated shabbily-are looked after with respect.

One of the key criticisms of the dowry system has been that the money goes to the in-laws or husband, and that they come to acquire greater control over the money than the bride herself. This often occurs because dowry payments serve the purpose of buying a right for the woman in the husband’s family property. If daughters inherited in the same manner as sons, they would enter their marital homes not as dependents but as equal partners. Such a woman could well insist on keeping property in her own name.

There can be no equality in marriage if women enter marital homes as dependents or as disinherited daughters. Women cannot be strengthened as wives if their parents treat them as burdens and do not equip them to fend for themselves as they do sons. It is absurd to think that a husband can be persuaded to part with half his property in case of a breakdown of the marriage, or that the in-laws would be willing to hand over to a young widowed daughter –in-law the inheritance due to their deceased son, when a woman’s own father does not treat her on par with her brothers and does not consider her worthy of being an equal inheritor.
Our struggle ought to focus on equal and inalienable inheritance rights for daughters in parental property, especially the right to live in the parental home as well as the right to take care of her parents in old age. It is only when parents begin to see daughters as worthy of providing them security in their old age, as much as sons, and are in turn willing to provide them with the economic security they try to provide for sons, that the culture of women’s devaluation can be combated. Merely outlawing dowry without ensuring inheritance rights for women only makes women still more vulnerable.

Producing a Rationale for Dowry?

Gender in the Negotiation of Exchange at Marriage in Kerala, South India
Written by Dr. Praveena Kodoth

Apparently against the grain of evidence of the expanding dimensions of dowry in India, the matrilineal castes in northern Kerala (India) rejected dowry transactions and considered them demeaning. They resorted to dowry only in circumstances considered exceptional. Foregrounding the negative discourse on dowry, this paper explores the ways in which gender enters into the negotiation of exchange during match making, producing a residual category of women for whom demands for dowry were entertained. These women were marked by a combination of poor social, economic and normative gender attributes, which restricted their access to patriarchal norms of femininity and relegated them to the margins of the marriage market. Their experience exposed the underbelly of ‘respectability’ in the region. The pressure to bring women under conjugal patronage compromised reciprocity in match making and generated a ‘practical’ rationale for dowry. Our analysis suggests that if it is to address dowry seriously, social policy in India must combat the centrality accorded to conjugality in the social construction of women’s interests and identity.

In the budget speech for the year 2004-05, the Finance Minister of Kerala, on the south west coast of India, announced a marriage insurance scheme (Mangalya Padhathi) for girls in destitute families under which the government was to pay a monthly premium for eight years, and the amount that accrued, subject to a minimum of Rs.10,000 was to be given at the time of a girls marriage. It was conceived of as “a historical step towards affirming Government’s role in providing social security for the poorest of our poor” (http://www.kerala.gov.in/). 1 The allocation of scarce budgetary resources away from ‘alternative’ channels of social security underscores interlocking concerns: a) the financial drain that marriages of girls pose to families and b) the implication of the state in the identifying women’s interests with conjugality. In endorsing marriage as an important element of women’s social security, a scheme such as the above enables families to invest disproportionately in marriage and to pay dowries. Match making and formalisation of marriage are a severe financial strain on parents of girls, as the painstaking and often stressful process of ‘looking for a boy’ dovetail with the financial outlays for the wedding including dowries that are often disproportionate to the levels of family income. Recent research shows that dowry has grown to be an important basis of match making among a cross section of social groups in southern Kerala and was implicated in strategies of upward mobility. However, my informants in the midland region of northern Kerala denied paying dowry and there was sufficient indication that they considered it demeaning to do so. Despite denials, marriage proposals for a small section of women did involve open negotiation and payment of dowry. “ (Praveena Kodoth)

Dowry –related studies

The Dowry Project

The Dowry Project was established by Dr Julia Leslie in order to further research in the areas of dowry, bride burning and son preference within South Asian and the Diaspora. The project has been successful in holding six international conferences and has attracted the support of academics from around the world. As a result of the last conference, held in New Delhi January 2003 a committed network emerged consisting of both academics and professionals. All those present during the end of conference working party decided that the debates needed to be moved forward into a fresh innovative course of action. All those present expressed concern that the research conducted on dowry should translate into practical strategies to end the brutal injustices women in South Asia and the Diaspora suffer from. The forthcoming workshop outlined below has been designed to launch a new phase in the Dowry Project.

Please direct all inquiries to Tamsin Bradley (Acting Chair The Dowry Project, SOAS) TamsinBradley@hotmail.com Discussion Group.

A discussion has been formed which connects those working on dowry around the world. To join please contact: ENDDOWRY@yahoogroups.com

Hindu Marriage System, Hindu Scriptures, and Dowry and Bride-Burning in India
by Ram Narayan Tripathi

In modern societies marriage is an established custom designed to make society a most dependable and indivisible unit. In the present generations, however, it has come under increasing pressure and criticism from many quarters and its very existence is threatened.

Let us talk about the Hindu marriage system and delve into the topic of dowry and bride-burning in India for which we are assembled here. No one doubts that is a most heinous crime perpetrated by greedy persons who want to get rich through the marriage of their sons. The custom of dowry is prevalent in many parts of India where it is regarded only as a voluntary gift to the bride by the parents, friends and relatives and there are no strings attached. In many cases, grooms do not take anything as dowry. Gifts are accepted as a token of love. But when the parents of the groom extort money from the parents of the bride as a recompense for marrying their daughter to their son, keep on increasing the demands after the wedding, finally kill the bride for the outstanding amount, and yet go unpunished by the administrative, legal and judicial system of the country, this must be a product of the overall moral decadence of the country. This is an extremely serious matter. I congratulate the organizers of The First International Conference on Dowry and Bride-Burning in India for focussing the attention of the world on this abominable crime in India.

In Hinduism, marriage is a very holy event in life. According to the Vedic rites, the groom and the bride are trained to fast on the day of their wedding, so that they may concentrate on the spiritual meanings of the marriage commitments. How the despicable practice of demanding dowry found its way into the pious and solemn custom of a Hindu marriage is extremely puzzling. To find an objective answer, one must analyze the history of Hindu people in those parts of India where dowry and bride-burning still continue in full force. In his book, Mr. H. B. Thakur has tried to diagnose the reasons for the degeneration of the Hindu society due to the historical forces of those areas, and their effects. One of the effects was the proliferation of child marriage in North India during the medieval period which was very rare in Vedic India. It became a compulsory practice for the Hindus in North India who lost their independence in the medieval period and could not protect their grown-up daughters. The only way to save the family honor was to marry off the daughter to someone else’s family who would be responsible for her protection. Child marriage abounded, and so did the practice of bidding for dowry.

This is a preview of the full article.

Dowry, ‘Dowry Deaths’, and Violence Against Women
by Julia Leslie

• 1. Introduction.
• 2. Dowry deaths in the news.
• 3. A middle-class phenomenon?
• 4. Who is to blame?
• 5. Can men be the victims of dowry?
• 6. Is dowry really the problem?
• 7. So what should we campaign for?
• 8. Inheritance rights for women.

I first met Mr. Thakur at the IX World Sanskrit Conference in Melbourne in January 1994. Prior to our meeting, he had sent me a copy of a book he had written, a fictionalized account of a dowry death.

1 His intention in writing that book was to provoke an emotional response to an emotive topic, and it worked. Having read the book, and being already sympathetic to its message, I was not surprised by Mr. Thakur’s impassioned presentation in Melbourne. He outlined what he saw to be the current situation in India regarding dowry deaths: that the custom of demanding dowry is spreading throughout India, and that the number of dowry-related deaths is on the increase. He explained that he had been trying to do something about this from within India for over a decade but without any real effect.

2 Finally, he begged the conference participants most earnestly to do all in their power to bring international public opinion to bear on the matter. The response from the floor, where the delegates were mainly Indian, was uninspiring but understandable. One speaker suggested that this was an inappropriate topic for a Sanskrit conference. Another implied that Mr. Thakur was doing India a disservice by “washing her dirty linen” in public. When I stood up to support Mr. Thakur’s call, it was an instinctive response. I had done no research on the topic myself. My own work had been on gender ideology in classical Hinduism with a particular bias towards teasing out the implications for women.

3 In this context, “dowry deaths” seemed an especially worrying modern variant of the general oppression of women, and one that I ought to know more about. I should like to thank Mr. Thakur formally for making me shift my focus for a while from the ideals of the classical past to the uncomfortable realities of India today. In this brief paper, I shall describe where this shift has taken me.

Manners & Customs: Dowry Dowries in ancient Bible times

Ancient Dowry THE MARRIAGE DOWRY Reason for dowry for bride’s family. In the Orient, when the bride’s parents give their daughter in marriage, they are actually diminishing the efficiency of their family. Often unmarried daughters would tend the flock of their father (Exodus 2:16), or they would work in the field, or render help in other ways. Thus upon her marriage, a young woman would be thought of as increasing the efficiency of her husband’s family and diminishing that of her parents. Therefore, a young man who expects to get possession of their daughter must be able to offer some sort of adequate compensation. This compensation was the marriage “dowry.” It was not always required that the dowry be paid in cash, it could be paid in service. Because Jacob could not pay cash, he said, “I will serve thee seven years for Rachel” (Genesis 29:18). King Saul required the lives of one hundred of the enemy Philistines as dowry for David to secure Michal as his wife (I Samuel 18:25). Reason for dowry for the bride herself. It was usually customary for at least some of the price of the dowry to be given to the bride. This would be in addition to any personal gift from the bride’s parents. Leah and Rachel complained about the stinginess of their father Laban. Concerning him they said, “He hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money” (Genesis 31:15). Laban had had the benefit of Jacob’s fourteen years of service, without making the equivalent of at least part of it as a gift to Leah and Rache1. Since a divorced wife in the Orient is entitled to all her wearing apparel, for this reason much of her personal dowry consists of coins on her headgear, or jewelry on her person. This becomes wealth to her in case her marriage ends in failure. This is why the dowry is so important to the bride, and such emphasis is placed upon it in the negotiations that precede marriage. The woman who had ten pieces of silver and lost one was greatly concerned over the loss, because it was doubtless a part of her marriage dowry (Luke 15:8,9). Special dowry from the bride’s father. It was customary for fathers who could afford to do so to give their daughters a special marriage dowry. When Rebekah left her father’s house to be the bride of Isaac, her father gave her a nurse and also damsels who were to be her attendants (Genesis 24:59, 61). And Caleb gave to his daughter a dowry of a field with springs of water (Judges 1:15). Such was sometimes the custom in olden times. [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]

Negotiating the Dowry CONDUCTING NEGOTIATIONS TO SECURE A WIFE The customs of the Arabs in certain sections of Bible lands when they negotiate to secure a bride for their son, illustrate in many respects Biblical practices. If a young man has acquired sufficient means to make it possible for him to provide a marriage dowry, then his parents select the girl and the negotiations begin. The father calls in a man who acts as a deputy for him and the son. This deputy is called, “the friend of the bridegroom” by John the Baptist (John 3:29). This man is fully informed as to the dowry the young man is willing to pay for his bride. Then, together with the young man’s father, or some other male relative, or both, he goes to the home of the young woman. The father announces that the deputy will speak for the party, and then the bride’s father will appoint a deputy to represent him. Before the negotiations begin, a drink of coffee is offered the visiting group, but they refuse to drink until the mission is completed. Thus Abraham’s servant, when offered food by the parents of Rebekah, said, “I will not eat, until I have told mine errand” (Genesis 24:33). When the two deputies face each other, then the negotiations begin in earnest. There must be consent for the hand of the young woman and agreement on the amount of dowry to be paid for her. When these are agreed upon, the deputies rise and their congratulations are exchanged, and then coffee is brought in, and they all drink of it as a seal of the covenant thus entered into.

TRUTH About dowry Law and Its Misuse.

This is a Report based on 5 years Research and Study on dowry Prohibition act, its use and misuse.This Reasearch conducted by our own Experts of MyNation for Save Indian Society,and not funded by any gender biased organisations. We studied 1500 Plus Families, these are feed backs from them and from the reports published by media.

What is IPC-498a ?

Cognizable – The accused can be arrested and jailed without warrant or investigation

Non-Bailable – The accused must appear in the court to request bail

Non-Compoundable – The complaint cannot be withdrawn by the petitioner

The accused, on a woman’s one complaint, are considered guilty until proven innocent, and the burden is on the accused to prove their innocence in the courts. It is even more torturous that old ailing parents too are arrested prior to investigation. Is this not violation of Human Rights of Indian citizen?

When an FIR (First Information Report) under IPC section 498A (anti-dowry law) is registered by a woman, the accused – the husband and his old parents, brothers, sisters, relatives – are arrested and jailed without investigation. The Supreme Court of India has ruled several times that arrest should be an exception, and not compulsory. Why is there no penalty for disobeying the Supreme Court’s orders? Is it not mental cruelty to subject a person to arrest without investigation or reasonable cause? Police are subjected to gender sensitization training wherein they are forced to take women’s complaint and arrest the accused even when they find the case to be fabricated. And in case the police do not react on a woman’s false complaint, the women groups are given unnecessary powers to take legal action against the officer-in-charge of the police station.

As per our Study, we found out that, it is a custom in India to give support to bride in the form of gold and valuables to support her future life with her husband, as husband take home the bride’s Father’s financial burden.

There are certain natural problems in every marriage that are always resolved amicably. In olden day, men and women used to manage these trivial differences in their marriages, but today’s modern women are not ready to compromise on petty issues, which are part and parcel of a married life.

Shobha [Name Changed] says dowry is not an issue. Ours was love-cum arranged marriage. I know my father’s capacity and how much he can give. And after marriage there is not chance takeing any money, so i only told my Husband,that he can take.we happy with that,it helped us to build our Family.we should not take Stridhan as dowry.

When we get marry, to make new house, start family we need money,from girl side her father should provide to start family,and man should not demand more than what girls family offer.Says Priya[Name changed]

We are not talking about the dowry deaths or physical injury cases but about dowry harassment cases that require no evidence and can be filed based on a single complaint by the wife. With an estimated of 60,000 such accusations per year and an average of 4 members of the husband’s family falsely implicated in each of these 498A cases, about 240,000 people are directly affected by these false accusations.

Latest Statistics Published on IBN-CNN.

*In 2004, 58,319 dowry cases were registered.
*1,34,757 men were arrested.
*47,828 cases have reached the charge sheet stage.
*10,491 dowry cases were not charge sheeted as they were based on frivolous ground.
*However, 5,739 men have been convicted but more than four times that number have been acquitted (24,127)

The controversial section not only covers dowry, but a wide spectrum of incidents including cruelty, causing injury and danger to mental or physical health.[Source:http://www.ibnlive.com/news/tortured-hubbies-victims-of-498a/27446-3.html] as on June 30 2005 are those under sections 498 and 498(A). In the first six months this year, 3801 new cases under just these two sections were instituted.

Thanks to the awareness levels amongst women, many more are approaching the courts today than before. Consider this against the number of cases that are disposed. They are only 2432 cases. Of them, only 164 cases led to convictions. 1449 cases ended in acquittal with the women considering further appeals.[Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/full_story.php?content_id= 79802]

This poorly formulated law is inviting women to file false cases, and causing the imprisonment of innocent husband and his old parents without investigation. They are put behind bar along with other criminals. These innocent people undergo stigmatization and emotional trauma even before the trial in the court of law, which leads to emotional, physical and financial torture. Some of the falsely accused have committed suicide after being jailed, unable to bear the social consequences. Helplessness drove these innocent families to commit suicide. What is the Government doing to protect these innocent families?

Result of False Accusations.

As per Recent report from Ahmedabad, Rajesh Hasmukh Desai, a married man, committed suicide. He was falsely charged under IPC 498A. If a woman dies in “any” circumstances within seven years of marriage, police, by default, will arrest the husband and his parents for abetting suicide of a woman or for dowry death. But in this case, police did not interrogate his wife, nor took any action against her. Rajesh’s case file was closed and the actual perpetrator got scot-free. Why the possibility of the wife driving her husband Rajesh Desai to suicide was ruled out ? Why she is not punished for abetting her husband’s suicide?

A study by Professor K. Nagaraj, senior economist at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS)

The distribution of suicides by marital status reveals some alarming pattern. The rates do not vary much between the sexes for the never married.

Among those currently married, while the rate for males is about 17 per 100,000 persons, the rate for females is 11.4 per 100,000.

Among those widowed, while the rate for males is 21 per 100,000 persons, the rate for females is also significantly lower, at 6.6 per 100,000.

Among divorced males the suicide rate is 164 per 100,000 persons, but even in this class, among females the rate is only 63 per 100,000.

While the suicide rate for separated men is about 167, for females it is only 41 per 100,000 persons.

Such alarming statistical reports have not yet convinced the Government that men too are victims of domestic violence and not providing them legal protection will only increase the suicide numbers for men.

[Source:http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1821/18210960.htm]

Despite the recommendations of the Supreme Court of India and Justice Malimath Committee that the legislative arm should modify the laws such that the innocent are protected. The suggested amendment in the 498A law has been largely ignored. Innocent men and old parents are visiting women cell for help, but they are neglected. Unchecked, this social evil is threatening the foundation of the Indian Family system.

Why do people misuse IPC 498a ?

Legal Extortion – When marriage is on the brink of Divorce, she finds no better weapon to harass her husband and in-law than 498A. Women will blackmail her husband and in-laws and coerce them to fulfill her demands or else she will file a false complaint against them. The husband knows that the law indiscriminately favours the woman and so he agrees to her selfish demands.

Pre/extra marital Affairs – She marries to satisfy her parents without disclosing her past. When the husband finds out about her affairs, she then files a false dowry case to blackmail him.

Domination – Wife wants the husband to abandon his parents and siblings, so that she can have total control over his finances and social behavior, including his life-style.

Custody – Deny the father and his family access to their child(ren).

Fraudulent Marriages – Many times girl’s family will not disclose actual facts of their daughter, at the time of marriage. Such facts, if known by the groom, the marriage would have never taken place. And when the husband stands his ground, the girl and her family begins their legal extortion.

In-Laws – When modern women are unable to adjust with her in-laws, when they find it difficult to dominate her husband and make him dance on her tunes, she goes for filing a false dowry case.

Consider a person who works extremely hard to make his career in this competitive World. Then he marries a beautiful and innocent looking wolf who drags him to court. There he is bound to lose all dignity, child custody and above all 50% of his income. He is forced to give out all his savings and family’s investments to this woman. Using his money, the wolf teaches to the child that his/her father was bad. Despite feeding the child of fathers’ money, the child, believing the wolf’s teachings, begins to hate the father. He has nothing to look at when he grows old.

This is nothing but sheer cruelty. Extreme disaster and an unending mental trauma. Apart from this I’ve seen men being ditched by various girls before marriage. In cities it is common that girl have many boyfriends. And they choose the richest among them for marriage. Rests are ditched. And few weaker among them commit suicide. Says Amit Agarwal, an victim of 498A.
Out of 100 cases that are ordered for investigation under 498A, only in 2 cases the accused get convicted.

”People generally use this law to facilitate divorce. And often, it’s the lawyers who advise the women to implicate their in-laws under the provisions of this Act,” says Shantosh Singh, chairperson of Women Welfare Counseling Cell. Often, the number of items given in dowry is inflated to claim a high settlement amount. “There are only 10 per cent cases based on truth, and people usually come to us and ask specifically to mention the element of dowry in their divorce petitions,” says Amrikh Singh Kalra, advocate at Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Women mis(using) laws to get even ?

NEW DELHI, Oct 18 (PTI) —Laws against violence at home may or may not have come to the rescue of battered women, but some of them have been accused of abusing them to get an easy divorce or settle other little domestic disputes.

According to the available statistical information from the National Crime Records Bureau and information available from NGOs working with victims of violence, there is a general tendency to avoid seeking redressal among the victims of domestic violence. However, when a victim of domestic violence seeks help from any of the agencies, be it family, friends, NGOs, or lawyers, before registering a complaint, at each stage she is asked to reconcile the matter or to put up with the situation. Reconciliation in 498A cases takes place at every stage including the police station, Crime against Women Cells and courts.

We found that in five cases filed under Section 498A the parties settled the matter after agreeing on maintenance and divorce.

In a majority of the cases before a victim filed the complaint under Section 498A, the minimum period she suffered physical and mental torture, was for about three years.

The trial process is quite lengthy and the proportion of pending cases is quiet high (out of the 40 cases based on victims’ interviews which went for trial in court, 28 cases are still pending). In the cases tracked, the normal trial period was between five to ten years.

“It was found that it was difficult to prove physical and mental torture. In all the eight cases in which the accused were acquitted, the victims were found to have suffered physical and mental torture, but as there was not enough evidence to prove torture, the accused were let off.

The cases where the accused were convicted had been filed under Section 498A along with section 304B and 302, which are applicable after the death of the victim. There were no convictions in any of the cases registered only under Section 498A.

It has been found that out of 30 cases there is not a single case where the accused has been convicted only under Section 498A. The accused have been acquitted (11 cases) by the court where the prosecutor failed to provide evidentiary proof of cruelty, mainly mental, inflicted on the victim as provided under The Political Economy of Dowry: Institutionalization and Expansion in North India Ranjana Sheel, Manohar, 1999, 229 p

Contents: Preface.

1. Introduction.

2. Historical background of dowry in India.

3. Institutionalization and expansion of dowry in colonial period.

4. Dowry and women’s movement in India during nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

5. Dowry and the state: the nature of anti-dowry legislation.

6. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.

“Dowry is one of the most serious problems touching women’s lives in modern India. Yet, it remains the least explored subject of historical study. Taking dowry as a crucial index for women’s status, Ranjana Sheel locates it within a broad historical framework and a feminist perspective viewing it not as a static custom but as a product of changing political, economic and social processes to comprehend its present shape as well as various dimensions. In doing so, the study raises the questions: how integral was dowry to the ancient prevalent marriage forms? How far was it legitimized by a tradition or traditions? What were its linkages with property and inheritance structures? And, how did it become so pervasive over time?

“Mariage in pre-modern times took varied forms. Dowry or voluntary gift giving was particularly linked to Brahma form of marriage which was prevalent mostly among the propertied and the upper castes. The modern form of fowry with its forced demands for gift-giving, the author argues, emanates from the colonial reinvention of a tradition whereby patriarchal Hindu tradition and customs were selectively appropriated and deployed. Simultaneously, the colonial restructuring of the socio-economic order strengthened the process of Brahmanization that in effect institutionalized and expanded dowry to other classes and castes of the society.
“The consequent unprecedented reach of dowry over Indian society provoked divergent responses from both national and regional women’s groups and the state. It built up a strong women’s movement. The state, however, failed to contain dowry primarily because its enactment eventuated from a patriarchal structure and ideology with its specific articulation of property, marriage, and gender issues. The study thus skilfully links complex historical developments with the entrenchment of dowry practices in modern India.” (jacket)
[Ranjana Sheel is with the Centre for Women's Studies, Banaras Hindu University.]

The Political Economy of Dowry : Institutionalization and Expansion in North India

Ranjana Sheel, Manohar, 1999, 229 p, ISBN : 81-7304-264-0, $27.00
Contents: Preface.

1. Introduction.

2. Historical background of dowry in India.

3. Institutionalization and expansion of dowry in colonial period.

4. Dowry and women’s movement in India during nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

5. Dowry and the state: the nature of anti-dowry legislation.

6. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.

“Dowry is one of the most serious problems touching women’s lives in modern India. Yet, it remains the least explored subject of historical study. Taking dowry as a crucial index for women’s status, Ranjana Sheel locates it within a broad historical framework and a feminist perspective viewing it not as a static custom but as a product of changing political, economic and social processes to comprehend its present shape as well as various dimensions. In doing so, the study raises the questions: how integral was dowry to the ancient prevalent marriage forms? How far was it legitimized by a tradition or traditions? What were its linkages with property and inheritance structures? And, how did it become so pervasive over time?

“Mariage in pre-modern times took varied forms. Dowry or voluntary gift giving was particularly linked to Brahma form of marriage which was prevalent mostly among the propertied and the upper castes. The modern form of fowry with its forced demands for gift-giving, the author argues, emanates from the colonial reinvention of a tradition whereby patriarchal Hindu tradition and customs were selectively appropriated and deployed. Simultaneously, the colonial restructuring of the socio-economic order strengthened the process of Brahmanization that in effect institutionalized and expanded dowry to other classes and castes of the society.

“The consequent unprecedented reach of dowry over Indian society provoked divergent responses from both national and regional women’s groups and the state. It built up a strong women’s movement. The state, however, failed to contain dowry primarily because its enactment eventuated from a patriarchal structure and ideology with its specific articulation of property, marriage, and gender issues. The study thus skilfully links complex historical developments with the entrenchment of dowry practices in modern India.” (jacket)
[Ranjana Sheel is with the Centre for Women's Studies, Banaras Hindu University.]

Dowry Murder – The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime

Veena Talwar Oldenburg

Description
The Hindu custom of dowry has long been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants in India. In this highly provocative book, Veena Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, women’s entitlements to the precious resources obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished, ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey into the colonial Punjab, Veena Oldenburg skillfully follows the paper trail left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture. The British, Oldenburg claims, publicized their “civilizing mission” and blamed the caste system in order to cover up the devastation their own agrarian policies had wrought on the Indian countryside. A forceful demystification of contemporary bride burning concludes this remarkably original book. Deploying her own experiences and memories and her research at a women’s shelter with “dowry cases” for almost a year in the mid-eighties, the author looks at the contemporary violence against wives and daughters-in-law in modern India. Oldenburg seamlessly weaves the contemporary with the historical, the personal with the political, and strips the layers of exoticism off an ancient practice to show how an invaluable safety net was twisted into a deadly noose. She brings us startlingly close to the worsening treatment of modern Indian women as she challenges us to rethink basic assumptions about women’s human and economic rights. Combining rigorous research with impassioned analysis and a nuanced treatment of a complex, deeply controversial subject, this book critiques colonialism while holding a mirror to gender discrimination in modern India.
About the Author(s)
Veena Oldenburg is Associate Professor of History of India at thVeena Oldenburg is Associate Professor of History of India at the City University of New York.