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The Practice of Dowry in India

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THE PRACTICE OF DOWRY IN INDIA

The last several hundred years of women's history in India has been painted black with dowry related incidences of murder, female foeticide/infanticide and domestic violence. An examination of dowry's history reveals that it is neither an exceptional nor a recent social phenomenon in India. Many societies in the earlier days of civilization had such practices. While such practices in most western societies vanished with modernization, they became more widespread and inflationary in India. Modernizing forces, namely colonialism and commercialization, have been at work in India for years, and they would prima facie be expected to suppress such primitive practices. However, even after more than forty years of its prohibition, the practice has spread and has increasingly ingrained itself in the institution of marriage.

A dowry is the transfer of parental property to a daughter as her inheritance at her marriage (i.e. inter vivos) rather than at the owner's death (mortis causa). A dowry establishes a type of conjugal fund, the nature of which may vary widely.Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price (or bride service) is a payment by the groom or his family to the bride's parents, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride's family to the groom or his family, ostensibly for the bride. Similarly, dower[->0] is the property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage and which remains under her ownership and control.

The tensions between India's patriarchal traditions and modernism can be seen in the struggle against dowry violence.Marriage in India is steeped in traditions and deep-rooted cultural beliefs. Practices are passed down by word of mouth and in some cases, re-interpreted to align with the changing times. There is, however, one custom that stubbornly

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