Dowry System a Curse condition of the marriage- Zoefact
by Ridzi Arora Article WriterThe
custom of giving dowry i.e. big presentation as also cash money, at the time of
the marriage of the bride is a very ancient custom. According to
fundamentalists (supporters of old values and the Shastras), this dowry is
nothing but the alimony or money giving at a time for the future maintenance of
the bride in her Father-in-law’s house. But the reformers looked upon the dowry
as a social fine. So in almost every family the girl-child, even the other day,
was relegated (lowered) to a secondary position. In some of the stories of
Rabindra Nath Sarat Chandra Like Dena-pawna and parinita the bride of the house
is made to feel at every step that she has committed a crime of being born as a
girl.
Fortunately,
the attitude is undergoing a change. Yet dowry or cash is even now, when the
society has far-advanced, rules the marriage settlement. Dowry or cash is now
demanded in a different form. It is sometimes for furnishing the chamber of a
law-practicing son-in-law or the dispensary of the physician son-in-law or to
play for the outfit and expenses of his study for having handsome dowry by
exerting pressure on the guardians of the bride still remains. In the lower
stratum of the society, whatever may be the religion of the bride, the demand
for dowry has not gone down even now.
Through
sustained campaigns in literature, stage
and screenplays (like “balidan” by Girish Ghosh and Mukunda Das) and also
through the columns of newspapers and periodicals, frontal attacks against
dowry system have been going on. What is essential is the spread of education
among the girls who are the hardest hit and direct victims of his long-standing
practice of dowry-taking.
Cases
of untold mal-treatment of daughters-in-law in the husband’s houses often
appear in newspapers. Suicides, bride-during or inhuman torture of the brides
are gruesome (fearful) cases that are being daily heard in law-courts. Often
severe punishments are infected. But only a few of the events of bride-torture
come to light and to law-courts. For most of them are hushed up for fear of
slander and public calumny.
It
is an amazing state of thing that such crimes are being committed more in
respectable families where the involved persons are also highly educated. The
Govt. has made laws to deter (prevent) and stop this crime. Social and missionary organizations are trying hard to
eradicate (to root out) the dowry system. But the net ground reality is that
the practice continues almost unabated different pretexts (under cover of a
false plea).
An
eminent man like Ishwar Chandra, Desh Bandhu inveighed (protested in loud
voice) against the dowry system. In their days a few young men come forward to
marry without taking a single farthing, to set an example to others. Community
marriages without dowry often take place. But, strangely enough, women
themselves of the groom’s house raise demands of dowry more.
The
best cause to remove this social scourge (curse) is for educated women to
organize, oppose, and agitate against this evil practice. Instances are not
wanting when some educated girls declined to marry the qualified groom since
there was a demand for cash or dowry from the other side. Nowadays some grooms
prefer career girls i.e. girls employed decently, to be the partners of their
life. This is also some kind of dowry. For the employed girls would be forced
to forego their salary meant for their father–in–law’s family.
Other
employed girls are forced to give up their jobs when they are married. Still,
self-supporting girls have a better standing. Thus in every way social justice
is not being done to the brides. Only by making laws, the system cannot be
abolished. Other stronger measures, for creating the right public opinion for
marriageable girls, have to be undertaken to ensure the proper status of brides
and wives.
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Created on Apr 2nd 2021 07:14. Viewed 248 times.