Traditional Bridal Dowry Box as a Social Evil in Indian Society

A satirical website created in 2011 calculates the amount of dowry women need in order to marry the men of their choice. The website mocks India’s social evil, and it exposes some of the unhealthy factors families consider in order to arrive to “dowry rate.” Some of the factors are caste, education of the groom and even skin color. In India the custom of dowry is a very old tradition that originated in the 13th or 14th century, when women were not given any share from paternal wealth and when women were regarded as the property of either their fathers or their husbands. At that time, dowry was giving women some pre-mortem inheritance and some economic security. Traditionally it was a Stridhanam – daughter’s wedding settlement, but in 20th and 21st century a wife does not have any control of dowry anymore and it is just the monetary price that a woman’s parents pay to their future son-in-law in order to marry off their daughter. There have been many regulations from the Indian government in order to ban this tradition, but people tend to be unresponsive to these regulations. Not only government officials but also political and social activists voiced their opinions against it. Arundhati Roy, the author of The God of Small Things, is a political and social activist who critiques Indian society and argues that women deserve equal rights to those of men in inheritance and property. The God of Small Things has two interesting passages which discuss the dowries (or lack thereof) of two protagonists Ammu and Rahel, mother and daughter, respectively. The first passage describes Ammu’s early life and her decision to marry Baba.

While the second passage is about Rahel, Ammu’s daughter. This passage describes how Rahel not having anyone ...

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...y decided to convert Baby Kochamma into nun and give her some education.

Works Cited

Banerjee, Priya R. "Dowry in 21st-Century India: The Sociocultural Face of Exploitation." Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 15.1 (2013): 34-40. Sage Journals. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

Munshi, Soumyanetra. "Education and Dowry: An Economic Exploration." IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review 1.2 (2012): 111-20. Sage Journals. Web. 03 Mar. 2014

Rastogi, Mudita, and Paul Therly. "Dowry and Its Link to Violence Against Women in India: Feminist Psychological Perspectives." Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 7.1 (2006): 66-77. Sage Journals. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.

Roy, Amitabh. "The Women in the Novel." The God of Small Things: A Novel of Social Commitment. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2005. 47-66. Print.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House, 1997.