Simply defined, dowries seem benign. They’re wedding gifts, usually money from a bride’s family paid to a groom’s family to solidify a marriage.
But peer a little closer and you’ll find a system as ugly and corrosive to women’s rights as child marriage, female genital mutilation, and systems of male guardianship.
In more than a dozen countries around the world, dowries are common practice. In almost all cases, the practice directly or indirectly oppresses women.
Oftentimes it leads to abuse and violence.
India is the epicenter of dowry culture, even though the government banned the practice in 1961, and the effects of the system are everywhere corroding efforts toward greater gender and economic equality.
Here are 9 reasons why dowry culture in India is horrible for women.
More than 8,000 women die as a result of India’s dowry system each year. Sometimes a woman is murdered by her husband or in-laws when her family can’t raise the requested dowry gift. Other times, women commit suicide after facing harassment and abuse for failing to meet the dowry price.
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And impunity expands the cycle of violence — just a third of reported dowry-motivated murders result in convictions.
