Dowry

Template:Cleanup A dowry is a gift of money or valuables given by the bride's family to the groom at the time of their marriage. It has been an ancient and widespread practice of unknown origin. Generally, it has been thought to have originated as the contribution from the family of the bride toward the expenses in the creation of the new family. Today, it is practiced throughout the world in various areas and cultures, with some controversy over whether it exacerbates domestic violence and abuse of women or whether it functions to help families.

Historically

Historically most societies have brides go to their husband's families. Usually, the husband has been primarily resonsible for the economic prosperity of the household, while women cared for children and the household needs. When a woman or girl would marry into a family that was agricultural, she often was welcomed as another worker. In families that were more prestigious, however, she may have been viewed as another mouth to feed. In such cases, the dowry makes a lot of sense.

Another perspective is how unmarried women are seen in some societies to attract stigma and tarnish the family reputation. In these cases,it is in the bride's family's interest to marry off their daughter as soon as she is eligible^{[citation needed]}. The size of the necessary dowry was directly proportional to the groom's social status, thus making it virtually impossible for lower class women to marry into upper class families. In cases where a woman's family was too poor to afford a dowry,she may have been forbidden from ever marrying, or became a concubine to a richer man who could afford to support a large household. Dowries have been part of civil law in almost all countries, Europe included. Dowries were important components of Greekand Roman marriages.

Conversely, a similar custom of property given to the bride by the groom and his family is called adower or a Bride Price.

In either case, the bride has usually been entitled to her dowry or dower in the event of widowhood, hence the terms "dowry" and "dower" are sometimes confused.

The Ancient World

It is described in the oldest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi as a pre-existing custom, prescribing only regulations for how it was to be handled and also included regulations for a bride price. If a woman died without sons, her husband had to refund the dowry but could deduct the value of the bride price, the dowry would normally have been the larger of the sums. It marks the first record of long-lasting customs, such as the wife being entitled to her dowry at her husband's death. Her dowry was inheritable only by her own children, not by her husband's children by other women.

In Homeric times, the usual Greek practice was of a brideprice, and when dowries were practiced in classical times, there would also be a (smaller) brideprice being given by the groom to the bride's family. Ancient Romans also practiced dowry. In both ancient Athens and Rome, women could not own property. A widow needed a male relative to administer any estate for her, and this included the dowry. The Roman Tacitus noted that among the Germans, the practice was the reverse: a groom settled a dower on the bride.The dowry only became part of ancient Egyptian culture after the Greek and Roman influence. Women in Egypt were legally allowed to own property and manage their own affairs, and probably had less need of this type of provision.

In Europe

With the advent of Christianity and religious orders, women brought their dowries with them when they became nuns, as they were becomming the "bride" of Christ.

Dowry in Europe continued through Victorian England. It was seen as an early payment of her inheritance, and as such only daughters who had not received their dowry were entitled to part of the estate when their parents died. If a couple died without children, the dowry reverted to the bride's family.

Failure to provide a customary, or agreed-upon, dowry could call off a marriage. William Shakespeare made use of this in King Lear — one of Cordelia's wooers ceases to woo her on hearing that King Lear will give her no dowry — and Measure for Measure — Claudio and Juliet's premarital sex was brought about by their families' wrangling over dowry after the betrothal, and Angelo's motive for forswearing his betrothal with Mariana is the loss of her dowry at sea.

Folklorists often interpret Cinderella and its variants as competition between the stepmother and the stepdaughter for resources, which may include the need to provide a dowry. Gioacchino Rossini's opera La Cenerentola, makes this economic basis explicit: Don Magnifico wishes to make his own daughters' dowry larger, to attract a grander match, which is impossible if he must provide a third dowry.

One common penalty of the time for the kidnapping and rape of unmarried women was that the abductor or rapist had to provide the woman's dowry.

Providing dowries for poor women was regarded as a form of charity. The custom of Christmas stockings springs from a legend of St. Nicholas, in which he threw gold in the stockings of three poor sisters, thus providing for their dowries. St. Elizabeth of Portugal and St. Martin de Porres were particularly noted for providing such dowries, and the Archconfraternity of the Annunciation, a Roman charity dedicated to providing dowries, received the entire estate of Pope Urban VII.

In some parts of Europe, land dowries were common. In Grafschaft Bentheim, for instance, it was not uncommon for people who had no sons to give a land dowry to their new son-in-law with the stipulation attached that with the land comes the family name whence it came, thus a condition of the land dowry was that the groom would take on the family name of his bride.

In Europe it is common for the bride's family to pay for the majority of the wedding costs.

In India

The practice of dowry exists across India. There are legal controls on the practice of dowry and related violence, but in the some of cases, the system has no impact on the practice. The girl child's dowry and wedding expenses often sends her family into a huge debt trap. As consumerism and wealth increase in India, dowry demands are growing. The dowry trap pushes many families into debt. In rural areas, families sell their land holdings, while the urban poor sell their houses.

Increasing education and awareness has reduced the instances of this and in some areas notably West Bengal it has virtually been wiped out. Actually education is the biggest hope against this evil as again the Bengalis(residents of West Bengal) being Great Britain's first colony on the subcontinent benefited the maximum from British Education and social ethos in general. India had many evil systems in the past like "SATI"(where the widow would burn herself to protect the honour) were eradicated due to powerful influence of education and the outlawing of the practice by Lord Bentik of the East India Company.

The current India Dowry system, which was non-existent in India before the eighteenth century, can be attributed to the coming of the colonial British Empire with their land ownership rights and the associated revenues. Prior the Indian crap lodge, no single person held land ownership - in fact the village as a whole owned the land - so no give or take could be possible during weddings. Once individual and fractious land ownership was forcibly introduced by the British, it became possible for land to be traded and offered as gift or transferred. Prior to the British Dowry system, the only wealth given during weddings was the jewelry/ornaments passed from mother to daughter as has been happening since generations. Even now this tradition continues, but has been subsumed by the larger British Dowry system.

In India, the practice is still common, in arranged marriages and in rural areas as it is widely recognized as a Traditional Ritual of Marriage. Demanding dowry is prohibited by law as of 1961 More information can be found by searching for the phrase "IPC 498a." In spite of refusing to be part of dowry systems many grooms have been brought to grief.

The practice of the bride giving a dowry to the groom is said to have originated in the system of recognition that not only the husband was responsible for providing for his wife, but her father shared this responsibility. It is not clear when the practice began in India. In the recent times, as women have better economic opportunities, this tradition no longer holds valid. While the burden is removed from a woman's father and brothers, it still remains with the husband. In India, the practice of giving women a dowry on breakage of marriage by husband still holds and is assisted by the judiciary and the police through threat of imprisonment.

Many times the transaction never ends; the women can come back to the courts for more dowry if she feels it necessary.

What began as a sharing of the economic burden of protector and provider role between the two families in an essentially agricultural economy has degenerated into gifts of gold, clothes, consumer durables, and large sums of money, in a few rare cases impoverished or heavily indebted poor families. The dowry is often used by the receiving family for business purposes, family members' education, or given to the husband's sisters, mostly as dowry in their marriage. Unfortunately, many times the bride’s family is unable to continuously provide such gifts to the groom’s (depending on whether or not the groom will continue to ask for gifts) after the wedding. Therefore, the bride’s family will disown her because they can not afford her and eventually, the groom will no longer “want” her. In some cases, this results in the death of the bride, either by suicide or murder. Dowry related deaths are still on the rise in the rural areas.

To curb the practice of dowry, the government of India made several laws detailing severe punishment to anyone demanding dowry and a law in Indian Penal Code (Section 498A) has been introduced. While it gives boost to a woman and her family, it in the same time also put a man and his family in a great disadvantage. Misuse of this law by women in urban India and quite a few incidents of extortion of money from the husband done by the wife and her family have come to light. The law states jailing of ANY person the wife names in a written complaint. Old people and children have been jailed by the misuse of this law. The law has a misandry tone to it. The Indian government's main motive for ensuring that removing evidence requirement (under section 113B) which is required in other penal cases is currently not clearly understood.

There are reports of domestic violence associated with dowry related demands, these include homicide, see the articles on dowry death & bride burning.

In China

The similarity between the dowry system in China and the dowry system in India is that it serves as a way for the family to secure some of its wealth for its daughters, as women could not inherit property in the orthodox Confucian society of China. However, there are many important differences between the two and these include:

• Unlike the Indian dowry system which was brought in by the foreign colonialists and imperalists, the Chinese dowry system is indigenous and has lasted for thousands of years.

• Unlike the Indian dowry system in which the transactions seldom end with the wedding, the Chinese dowry system is often an one-shot deal that ends with the wedding.

• Ancient China (as well as modern China to a certain degree) is a patriarchal society dominated by the orthodox Confucian traditions, in which it is a great shame for a man who cannot provide for his wife and thus has to survive on his wife's assets, such as her income or her dowry. Since dowry is one-shot deal, it is optional for the bride's family to contribute additional financial support after the wedding in order to improve the family relations. It is commonly considered as a shame if the groom's family is requesting additional support. As a result, the dowry is often served as a private savings, properties, jewelries. The groom and his family have control over the properties, but far less power in controlling the private savings and jewelries. Although the Chinese wife might have greater automony than her Indian counterpart, the orthodox Confucian tradition dictates that the dowry assets should be used in the following order to support her husband when the assets of husband is not enough. The bride would only allow to use her private savings and personal properties to support:
  • the eldest son's education when his livelihood can be provided but not enough for his education,
  • the remaining sons' education when their livelihood can be provided but not enough for their education,
  • the livelihood of the eldest son when there is not enough to do so,
  • the livelihood of the remaining sons when there is not enough to do so,
  • the livelihood of daughters until they marry,
  • the livelihood of the parents,
  • the education of the groom's brothers when there is enough for their livelihood but not enough for their education (often until the brothers marry),
  • the education of daughters.

• Most importantly, due to the patriarchal society dominated by the orthodox Confucian traditions in ancient China (as well as modern China to a certain degree), bride price was and still is far more prevalent than dowry in Chinese society than Indian society. As a result, the amount of wealth for the bride price in China was (and still is) often greater than that of the wealth for the dowry. Furthermore, it was customary for the traditional Chinese society to accept the fact that the bride and her family have little or no dowry, but it is not acceptable for the groom and his family having little or no bride price.

• In the traditional Chinese society, dowry is also a symbol of social status, and thus in China, especially in the northern part of China, dowry is shown in public during the traditional Chinese wedding: when the wedding procession from the bride's home is on its way to the groom's home, the wealth of the dowry in forms other than money was carried behind the sedan of the bride and maids of honor. The presence of dowry is more important than maid of honor because in China, particularly the northern part, it was acceptable to lack the maid of honor, but not acceptable for lacking a form of dowry, no matter how small it is.

• Unlike the relatively stable Indian society, there were drastic changes in the customs and practice of dowry and bride price in China due to the political movements in China (especially due to the Cultural Revolution). During Mao's reign, both the dowry and the bride price were denounced as being feudalistic and materialistic, thus degrading morals, and traditional Chinese weddings that were associated with dowry and bride price became nearly extinct. Due to the Chinese economic reform, there was a resurgence of traditional Chinese weddings and along with it, there is a gradual come back of both the dowry and the bride price in China since 1980s, and then rapidly in recent years because the current economic development in China has accelerated this comeback greatly. Again, this recent comeback reflects the Chinese tradition in which the bride price is far more important than the dowry.

the United States

Marriage has traditionally been a state issue in the United States, not under the Federal legal system. Dowry has not been included in the civil law in all of states except Louisianna, which is heavily influenced by the Napoleonic Code and Roman Civil Law. In Louisiana, Dowry rights are protected where in the other states they are not recognized and property rights upon any such dowry must be proved in another way.

The United States has kept alive an original aspect of the Dowry system in an unusual way. The hope chest was a method to provide a type of dowry for the daughter while pioneering the Western frontier in the United States in the 1800 s. This was a very difficult situation, and the mother would teach the daughter various aspects of how to make the things she would need to start up her household. Together they would make the items that would fill the chest. In the Laura Ingles Wilder series, Laura had more than a dozen quilts made in her chest by the time she married. feature of the westward pioneering movement in the 1800 s, and many people

External links

• Female foeticide in India
• Female Foeticide
• Counter male fixation to fight adverse sex ratio in Punjab
• Sex ratio keeps getting worse
• Man dies of shock as wife bears baby girl
• Misuse of dowry laws
• Anti-dowry laws in India
• mothers and sister suffer due to abuse and misuse of Anti dowry laws
• Matrimonial websites for the people who oppose dowry system
• A Self help website for the people who have been abused by the Indian anti-dowry Laws 498A

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