Dowry Deaths (bride burning) in India and Abetment of Suicide: A Socio-Legal Appraisal

• Author: Nehaluddin Ahmad
• Position: Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Law Multimedia University, Malaysia
• Pages: 275-289

Page 275

1. Introduction

Dowry system as a social problem has acquired grave dimensions in recent years and all attempts for a legal solution have not produced the desired result. Over the past few years, the cases of bride burning have registered a sharp increase through-out India, everyday, almost every six hours, somewhere at some place in India,¹ a young married woman is being burnt alive or beaten to death or being pushed the commit suicide.²The gravity of the situation may also be judged from the fact hat the National Commission of the Women has recommended for the scraping of the dowry Prohibition Act. It only shows that the reality of the situation is beyond the legislative and enforcement activities. According to data complied by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of India , a total of 2,276 female suicides due to dowry disputes were reported in 2006 that is six a day on an average, while the figure was 2,305 in 2005. In 2004, at least 2,585 such cases were registered across the country.³ On an average one Indian woman commits suicide every four hours over a dowry dispute, as per official data, despite a series of laws to empower them.⁴

Dowry has been referred and may defined as "unilateral transfer of resources from Page 276 the bride's family at marriage to the groom's family for inviting her to their home permanently and that dowry is, therefore, a compensatory payment to the family which agrees to shelter her hypothetically for the rest of her life.⁵

The dowry custom continues to rule society. In majority of Indian families the boy has inheritance rights while the girl is given a hefty sum at the time of her marriage⁶ in lieu of the Government regulated equal rights for girls in parental property. The evil of the dowry system has spread its tentacles in almost all parts of the country and almost in every section of society.⁷ There are several reasons for the prevalence of the dowry system, but the main one is that it is a necessary precondition for marriage. "No dowry, no marriage," is a widespread fear.⁸ There has also been an emergence of a feudal mindset with a materialistic attitude in a new globalized economy. The price tag for the groom is now bigger and bolder. The emergence of an affluent middle class, the torchbearer of social change in modern India, is the main factor for the perpetuation of the dowry system.⁹ It is difficult for families with daughters who are highly educated to arrange marriages because the girls are required to have even more educated husbands and there is shortage of eligible educated grooms .The daughter 's parents are ready to pay a handsome amount as dowry and they run behind the eligible educated grooms.¹⁰

Most marriages are arranged by families, and a man who does not marry for love, he can marry for other considerations such as possessions. For this man and his family, a woman becomes the ticket to his shortcut richness through the system of dowry. There are a number of things people desire to have in their own houses but cannot afford; they use the opportunity of a son's marriage to get them.¹¹

On the other hand it is the duty of the father of the bride to find a suitable bridegroom for his daughter. The cast system,limited number of bread earning and educated bridegrooms; lack of education and earning potential of brides and greed of the bridegroom or his family to enrich by marriage have contributed the ancient system in to a present practice.¹² Page 277

The root cause of bride burning, as well as other forms of domestic violence against women, lies in their subordination and their frequent powerlessness within their husbands' family following marriage. Thus, cases of bride burning can and do occur without dowry being the causal factor, although dowry is possibly the single largest cause. Dowry commonly refers to the material gifts given to the bride by her family, usually at the time of the wedding.¹³ Scholars, such as M. N. Srinivas, make a distinction between the ancient custom of dowry as dakshina or dana (voluntary and often token gifts) and the contemporary practice of dowry.¹⁴ Nowadays dowry refers to material objects demanded (as opposed to voluntarily given) by the bridegroom's family, and often involves significant amounts of cash, property, household objects, and jewellery. In its current form, dowry is regarded, by those who demand it, as a reflection of the social status of the bridegroom's family. Thus, the more eligible the prospective bridegroom (eligibility being perceived as the social standing, the wealth, the educational and career-related achievements, and so forth, of himself and his family) the larger the dowry that his family has the right to demand and receive. Geraldine Forbes, ¹⁵ and other scholars also point out that, in relatively recent times, growing consumerism and the increasing tendency to equate social status with material objects has made it attractive for prospective bridegrooms and their families to use the dowry as a means of enriching themselves at the time of marriage by demanding expensive presents from the parents of the prospective bride.¹⁶ The desire for continuing to benefit materially from the parents of the bride can take the form of pressuring the bride and her family for more dowry even after marriage.

Incidentally, the relatively low social value of girls in Indian society (manifest, for example, in the very recent custom, within some segments of Indian society, of aborting female fetuses)¹⁷ is connected to the financial pressures encountered by their families through the custom of dowry.¹⁸ There are few more motivations which could also motivates the dowry system such as:

- Aspiration to marry in the High and Rich family.

- Pressure of the caste system.

- Social Custom.

- Marriage system.

- False notion of social status and

- Vicious Circle. Page 278

The pressure to provide a dowry is also felt by female children themselves. In Kanpur (UP) three sisters were reported to have committed suicide in order to spare their parents the humiliation of not being able to provide a dowry, without which they could not get married¹⁹ It is well known that birth of daughter is not a happy event. Giving a birth of daughter means additional burden of expenses of her marriage and endless expenses thereafter.²⁰ The birth of a boy is an occasion for rejoicing women who give birth to a son gets special favours from the husband and in laws of some communities.²¹

Dissatisfaction over dowry may find expression through acts of hostility ranging from verbal abuse to actual violence to bride burning.²² It is the most extreme violence against newly married women. This system is more rigid in the northern region consisting of Bihar,Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh states specially in hindi speaking belt of India,²³ but we can not assume that non hindi speaking provinces had no causality of dowry.

2. Historical and Socio-Legal Concept of Dowry

Although it is not clear when the practice of dowry began in India but it is very ancient. The system of dowry was found widely practiced in Indian society in the early days. In ancient times, dowry was the part of the ritual of Kanyadanam (Kanya means daughter and Danam means gift)²⁴, particularly in upper class marriage in the ancient and the medieval period. In the British and modern period it engulfed the entire society.²⁵ It was a gift offered willingly in the medieval period and now turned into an evil system. A reason for the origin of dowry could perhaps be that the groom and his family had to take up the 'onerous' responsibility of supporting the bride for the rest of her life.²⁶

Father in order to marry his daughter had to pay hefty wealth demanded by groom's family. Though it was practiced in the aristocratic and royal families; it engulfed the society in alarming way. It started in the ancient religious customs of "Var Dakshina"( Page 279 groom's gift offered willingly)²⁷ and the duty of the father of the bride to send her bedecked her with costly ornaments and clothes. It was thus customary for the parents and her relations to give gifts out of love and affection.²⁸ At that time it was believed that this was to be used as a nucleus of the married couple's matrimonial estate and the father of the bridegroom would not use it or kept it for his own purposes or profit from the sale of the bridegroom.²⁹

In the ancient 'Mitakshara' system³⁰ (Hindu ancient universal rules governing human life)³¹ female's were denied any share in the immovable property of a decreased Hindu because in order to avoid partition of land and the society was mainly agricultural and that is why the system of 'Var Dakshina' (groom' gift) and giving ornaments etc to the bride was adopted.³² The father manager of a joint hindu family had special power to make a gift of a small portion of immovable joint family's property out of affection to this daughter. The property given to a female before, or at the time of or after her marriage was known as Stridhan (woman's property) and strengthened the idea that she was an affectionate as member of her family of her birth as sons.³³ The groom family normally gives many justifications for dowry such as (1) Most men think it is their right to demand dowry for the expenses they will incur in looking after the bride;³⁴ (2) Parents of the groom expect dowry to reimburse the expense of their son's education;³⁵ (3) Dowry is a status symbol. Men who do not accept dowry are sometimes criticised not only by the society but also their own family members;³⁶ (4) Marriage with dowry is considered more prestigious and is recommended for the higher castes.³⁷The Parliament showed its concern on the dowry system by the Dowry Prohibition Act Page 280 in 1961 which came into force on May...