The word marriage in itself implies various meaning. It means when two people who have decided to spend their life with each other by accepting all the issues between them. But in Indian society, marriage has turned a burden for the girl’s family as they spend their full savings in order to satisfy the needs of the boy’s family. This is termed as Dowry or dahej in Hindi.Dowry is basically the amount of money or goods brought by the bride to her husband on their marriage. It may include cash, jewelry, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils, car and other household items that help the newly-weds set up their home.
It is not only in countries like India but various countries in this world suffer from these issues like Pakistan, North Africa and other parts of South Asia. In India, Historical eyewitness reports, suggest dowry in ancient India was insignificant. But after the beginning of 20th-century dowry became common among people.
But now in 21st century it has become torcher for the bride and its family. Dowry is widely considered to be both a cause and a consequence of son preference. The practice of dowry inevitably leads to discrimination in different areas against daughters and makes them vulnerable to various forms of violence.
In a certain study done by the WHO, shows that the estimates for actual number of dowry deaths per year vary widely ranging from 600-750 homicides a year to 25,000 homicides a year, with official government records suggesting 7,618 deaths in 2006 and about 4.6% of total crimes against women in India were dowry death-related, and another 1.9% were related to violation of Dowry Prohibition Act, which shows the true reality of our nation in terms of equality of status.
It doesn’t mean that the government and the judiciary system of our country is not doing anything against Dowry. If any person, after the commencement of dowry prohibited act 1961, gives or takes or abets the giving or taking of dowry, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years, and with fine which shall not be less than fifteen thousand rupees or the amount of the value of such dowry, whichever is more. Government has also tried various campaign against eradication of Dowry in India. Some of them are as follows
Lastly I would like to conclude by saying that don’t materialize your love for money. And in this case both the bride and groom family is responsible for the crime .As the bride family give preference to the society rather than their daughter self-respect whereas the groom family try to materialize their son for rupees. For them the money they have spent on their son can be returned only by taking money from the bride’s family .This problem can be eradicated only when both the families change their perspective and society should also try to boycott these people in order to show them what they are doing is not right.