The Dowry(Dahej) & The Impotent Man

The decision of marriage is an extremely crucial decision of Your life. Surely, a point will come when You will make a choice. It happens with everybody. The thought of spending the entire life with a new person can be both exciting and tremendously frightening for You. It's understandable. But what turns a simple marriage into a totally ugly process happens even before the marriage takes place. Its called 'Dowry'. In simple terms, dowry is the money, goods or estate that a woman brings to her husband and his family in marriage. 

At the very outset, let me tell You that the act of dowry cannot and should not be justified on any grounds. It is a crime. Dowry is a punishable offence under the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 with imprisonment of minimum 5years and a fine of rupees more than 15000 or the value of dowry received whichever is higher. Unfortunately, even in this modern age an ancient useless tradition of such a kind still persists. This article briefly looks at the problem of dowry from three different standpoints. They are 

a) The Parents of the Bride;

b) The Bride herself;

c) The Impotent Man(Groom and in-laws) demanding the dowry.

A) Parents of the Bride

Generally, the parents of the bride are in their age of late fifties when She decides to get married. The hefty amount of dowry which is demanded from the other party is undoubtedly a huge financial debt for any middle-class Indian family. To shell out this amount, the father often withdraws money from their savings or break their fixed deposit in the bank which he had saved throughout his job. At times, they even have to keep their property as collateral to acquire a loan from the bank. The hard-earned money which could have become a life-supporting factor for the father and his wife in old age simply becomes the food of greed for the demanding party (the groom). The dowry and the other expenses of the marriage leave the unfortunate old parents of the bride in a perpetual state of debt for the rest of their life. As a result, their future becomes highly insecure at the age of retirement. But what's more terrible is the fact that if the father has a son then he will do the same to extract money out of the other party during the marriage of his own Son. The vicious cycle continues. 

B) The Bride Herself

The list of the problem with the bride is way too long. Let's have a look at how they are interconnected. It is because of this dowry and the huge expenses of the marriage due to which She was denied quality education in her early life. She was considered as a 'liability' because of the fact that one day she had to go to some other house to live. Therefore, the cunning logic imposed by society is that the goddamn 'return on investment' is less even if money is spent on Her education when compared with the Son. This is what I call a pure money-minded society which is good for nothing. Since she was denied higher education this caused Her to get low paid jobs. An obvious outcome. But the story doesn't end here. When She gets married She is often denied by Her in-laws to join Her job again. This makes her financially dependent on Her husband, for all time to come. As a result, if She is the only child of Her parents then She cannot financially support them in their old age. Added to this, when She becomes a mother She gets even more entangled. It is not the motherhood which is the problem but very suppression which She faces from the in-laws and the husband after becoming a mother. 

The idea of dowry to my mind is purely born out of 'Greed' due to which no amount of money or gifts can ever ever ever satisfy it. The feeling of exploiting and extracting more from the bride persists in the man and in her in-laws. As a result, She is often cursed and abused for bringing less money in dowry from her home. This gradually increases to mental torture, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional vulnerability and at times even leads to dowry deaths. It is a reality. We have to face it. She lives the rest of her life with a persistent feeling of being cheated, exploited and looted. 

C) The Impotent Man

For the Groom and his family, marriage is a great opportunity to earn and exploit with absolutely no effort. Car, Bike(Bullet in particular), TV, Fridge, Air Condition, Bed, expensive watches, Furniture, Lakhs and Lakhs of money in cash or in kinds and other items are demanded openly without any sense of shame and guilt. Honestly speaking, the list is endless. The demand for the above-mentioned items is a sheer display of an exploitative nature of our society. 

In Grooms case, the rate of dowry is directly proportional to his education qualification and salary of the job. The rates increase exponentially if the groom has a good job and a higher salary. There exists a devilish sense of pride in the groom and his family for demanding more. It won't be wrong if I firmly park the opinion to You that the groom is like a product sold on Amazon/Flipkart/ matrimonial websites. He is a tradable product whose rate can be set by the people around him. You can literally assign a monetary value to the groom. The argument which is placed by the grooms family in favour of dowry is that "A huge amount of money was spent on his education with which he got a high paid job. He will also take care of the bride for the rest of his life. Therefore he deserves the dowry." A person demanding money for the sake of marriage from the bride's father is no less than a beggar. Probably, even worse than a beggar. This shows the impotence of his manhood. He should not even be called a 'man' in the first place because such a man is good for simply nothing. 

The above-mentioned aspects, I hope, makes it clear that dowry is a social evil. There are numerous problems which germinate from dowry. Therefore, it should be rejected, condemned and looked down upon. Starting a new life and a relationship which has its roots in dowry, to my mind, can lead to misery in the long run irrespective of how rich or how poor the man is. 

(Dear Reader, marriage is an important decision. Your choice will have an impact on your entire life influencing every dimension. Take Your time. Make the right choice before its too late.)

Thank You

Abhishek Kumar