Thanks to all of you for sharing your/relatives' experiences regarding Dowry and Domestic Oppression with me. I've also been reading a few research papers on this topic and I have come up with this interesting correlation between Dowry and Domestic Oppression. I would like all of you to read it carefully, understand it, follow it and spread the word as much as you can. Because the more you spread the word, the more the probability of saving the rest of the life of someone you know...
I was going through the story of a friend of mine who's sister is facing the problems of Domestic Oppression. It has been 3 years since her marriage and the oppression began just 3 months after the marriage. Coincidentally, he shared this story with me just after I finished reading a paper on the relation of dowry and domestic oppression. So this was a real life example before me which proves that dowry leads to domestic oppression post-marriage.
She is a girl from a well-educated family, and is herself very highly educated. She is a gazzetted officer - a lecturer in a university. According to my friend, she is being continuously threatened by her husband for divorce. She does all the household work before going to the university, and does all the remaining work after her hectic schedule in the university. And is doing her best at whatever she can. But still she is being nagged for something or the other, and is threatened to be divorced. They force her repeatedly to leave the house. But an educated girl that she is, she does not succumb to these threats. There is a Domestic Violence Act 2006 to save her. But mental stress for her and her parents is natural.
A well educated, beautiful, caring girl that she is, what could be the potential reason for this condition of hers? I asked my friend immediately "Was dowry offered during the marriage?". He says "Yes. Infact a lot of negotiations and demands happened at the time of dowry and many things including a car was asked for in dowry". This was the catch. The research paper mentions this fact!
The time the negotiations for dowry start or the dowry is specifically "demanded" from the girl's parents, and once the girl's parents start agreeing to those demands, it is then that all the damage starts happening. There is a thing called self-respect in the human civilization. But in the modern Indus-Valley civilization, putting that self-respect in the feet of the potential groom's father is called "humility because of being a girl's father". And ironically, the more money the girl's father shows and the more demands that he is ready to fulfil, the more he thinks will his respect grow in the society.
So, once the "negotiations" for the sale of the boy start, the value of the girl starts going down with each demand agreed-to. Thinking logically, this is natural - and it should happen. It is the eternal rule of the business. The more is the requirement of a product, the more the price will be. Here the product being sold is the boy. And the more price the customer is ready to pay for it, the more the shopkeeper will keep quoting - you have to be emotionless when you are a businessmen. Else you fail. This is another rule of business.
Once it has been established that the self-respect of the girl's father is on the boy's father's feet, and that the value of even a beautiful, highly-educated girl is degraded during this negotiation, and that the boy's value has been increased significantly, anyone who has an idea of business or a bit of economics can say how the girl would be treated, and what will be the manner in which the girl's family will be treated post-marriage!
Do not agree to those demands, and do not send your daughter or sister to such a jail. Find another boy for her before it gets too late !!!
I have myself been a live witness to one such case where high-dowry negotiations were involved and the kind of jail that the girl is living into post marriage, and the rights that she and her family are barred from exercising. I would like all of you to spread the message. The more you spread the message, the more will we, together, be able to eliminate this evil from the society.
8 comments:
Greattt information...!!
Yes that's right ....DO NOT SUCCUMB to the pressure ...Let the guy's family feel ashamed when they have to tell people that the girl's family turned down the proposal because they were not matching our son's potential with the quoted amount
I read this somewhere ------ This is hilarious and courageous & can be practiced------
Me (the author) and a bunch of friends gathered up to be at a classmate’s brother’s wedding… It was a very different sort of an event… one of my friends was translating the ceremony on the fly… and at one point, the father of the bride put up 1 kg gold on stage. My friend explained that that would be the dowry. I stood up and said, “Hell. I’ll give 1.5 kgs. I’LL buy your son.” This started up a small bidding frenzy amongst our little gang. It went up to 5.25 kgs, and then died down.
Awesome man!!!!
Impressive work...its simply deserves a hell lot of accolades..Definitely an eye-opening blog..mark the use of graph plots in such sensitive issues..High technical approach..
Dowry has indeed been an unwanted evil right from the British era..On behalf of Jain, I would request atleast all the blog followers not to accept dowry..
if you guys support this theme atleast try to frame it in your life onwards..Actions definitely worty pf praise rather than supportive words..wat say Jain??
Quite a different insight to an emotional issue. Personally I don't believe one cannot therorise Emotions or do a "Trend Analysis" on the same, but that's my view
@ Neha: You are right.. But to reach to that level, we will have to associate everything associated with Dowry with the word "Something Wrong".. That is possible only through awareness at the grassroot level.. Spread the word as much as you can.. soon we are going to have this campaign launched at a grassroot level in towns and cities.. Hope to get all of yours support !
@ Preeti: The thing sounds interesting. But going to a function and protesting during the function seems to be humiliating for the hosts and the guests as well, plus, will not create that much impact, and might spoil the function as well the relations later on.. What we are targeting is a more basic approach.. it will take time like homeopathic medicine, but will be effective.. Spread the word !
@ Biru: I totally agree with you. Apart from taking the oath not to take the dowry ourselves, we need to spread the word.. Each one of us needs to be a leader ourselves.. Let each one of us be a leader in spreading the awareness!
@ Kenneth: It definitely is possible.. atleast qualitatively.. and people of science find it easy to understand it too.. you just need to see the graph and skip the whole blog to understand what is the key message.. :)
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