Even Though There Are Many Laws And Against Dowry.Why Don't it Affect India

Instead of outright refusing dowryoften people tell the bride’s parents, “You can give your daughter whatever you want.” And just like that, the burden of defining a “respectable” amount is shifted to the bride’s parents. And legally it would no longer be dowry.

Even though dowry has been illegal in India since 1961, it is still prevalent. Actual numbers are not known, but anecdotally about half of the weddings in my family and friend's circles involve dowry.

Still, it’s rarely reported as a crime. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, in a country with nearly 10 million weddings a year, less than 10,000 cases of dowry were reported in 2015. Dowry gets reported only when the groom’s demands go beyond what the bride’s family can afford or when the bride is physically abused or, worse,

killed, as cases that gained media attention show.

Within India’s arranged marriage system, finding your own partner is frowned upon. Parents and extended family take it upon themselves to find you potential matches when you reach the marriageable age of early to mid-20s for women and mid- to late 20s for men.

Arranging a marriage is conducted much like a company merger. It is all business with very little room for feelings like love. So much that “love marriage” is often used to refer to a marriage that is not arranged by the family. Nearly 90 percent of the marriages across India are arranged, 

Scholars cannot agree on the origins of dowry. One of the theories is that it originated from the country’s gendered inheritance rules

Women, traditionally, did not inherit family’s wealth. Dowry was seen as a way for the family to give women their share. This is often used a justification even today, despite laws like the 1956 Hindu Succession Act, which gave daughters equal rights to their family’s property.

Traditionally, an Indian bride moves in with her husband’s family, a practice that is not uncommon even today. The sons are expected to stay and support their parents while their wives take over the domestic responsibilities like cooking and cleaning. The women’s contributions to household duties are not assigned any monetary value. So she is essentially considered a freeloader unless she pays for her lodging and food expenses in dowry.

Now with more women joining the workforce, this justification falls by the wayside too. But like the gender wage gap seen even in countries like the US, some things are so entrenched in the culture and gender politics that they defy all logic. It is not easy to get rid of them.

India recognized dowry as one of the problems it needed to tackle as a young republic. The  Dowry Prevention Act of 1961 and later amendments aimed to outlaw the practice and empower women to report dowry extortions. The law criminalized both giving and receiving dowry, and it recommended a minimum imprisonment of five years and a fine equal to the amount of the dowry.

But the law has a rather narrow definition of dowry that excludes any voluntary gifts when no demands were made. This has given rise to a whole new vernacular when it comes to stating dowry demands without explicitly stating them.

Even when the groom’s family does not make demands, the bride’s family pays a dowry because it is a matter of pride and a symbol of social status.