From: mece21x@elroy.uh.edu (Yesudas, Michael)
Subject: Dowry and Marriages
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 20:12:00 GMT

Dowry has been in the midst of our society for a long time. I will not
go into any historical significance of dowry, because even if there was
some sane reason behind the practice of dowry it has probably become
outdated and obscure. The current situation indicates that there is a 
once-in-lifetime chance for every eligible bachelor to demand and force
out an amount of wealth that he thinks is right and justified.

There is no one single unanimous reason as to why people get married. For some
it is for the necessity of a lifetime companion. For some others it is an
institution that they think is necessary for the fulfilment of the lives.
Then there are the ones who look for love and affection and to cherish
the lives. There would be someothers who would claim that it is the only
way in which they can have licensed sex. The more philosophical answer
tantamount to this would be that every species whether man,animal or birds
has a natural tendency to procreate and that is the reason. Then you can
find some others who say that my parents and my people wanted me to get
married, But honestly I did not want to get married.....

Whatever be the reason that each person thinks the bottomline is that most
Indians do get married. The marriage is also diverse in nature starting 
from the ones which last for weeks to the ones which are less than an hour.
Also that in most cases the marriage is also a religious ceremony.

In a vast majority of cases the marriage is arranged so that the active 
participants can just come forward, take part in it and live happily ever
after. The marriages are in general a very happy occasion. (Except in the
case where the guy says after the marriage that this is not the girl whom
they showed me.) But this happiness is more due to the fact that finally
it is all over. Because the dirtiest part of the deal is over. The groom's
party is satisfied that they have sold the guy very well, though they still
feel that he could have got more. The girl's side feels that the demands
could have been a little more mild. Anyway sigh! sigh!

The story starts off with the day when the guy landed a job. He was maha-
thrilled about it and now he can indeed make his dreams come true. The
guy is looking for "goodest of the goodest gudiya" now. But then his 
"parents" tell him that he cannot marry any girl but only certain ones
who belong the narrow bandwidth of our community. Be it caste, creed
or other groups. They also tell him how painful it was for them to bring
him in such a manner that our hero is left wondering that wasn't it 
economically and practically more feasible for them to terminate his life
when he was born. He is also not led into thinking that the same parents
(whom he knows are very wise, atleast in mundane matters, though he is an
engineer) were also the ones who were also brought up by someone else

Well, the next thing is that he goes all around the town seeing girls
to find who is a good match for him. Either the parents are there with
him closely at his heels, or if our hero becomes more modern he goes alone 
and sneaks in and out of the house. 

For the first time our hero has no idea as to how he should evaluate the
girl. He has his own set of fundas of anatomy from his college days but
he is too scared of the atmosphere. He is also upset by the fact that 
everybody in the room is looking at him except the girl. It does not occur
to our hero that the girl whom he sees in front is not the "real"girl and
that he can expect her to look like that for very few days in her life.

The next question is that of dowry and everyone tells him that he has a
divine right to ask the girl's parents for money, simply because he was
born into the dominant sex. Anyway a lot of bargaining goes on and that 
finally takes into the picture of marriage.

The girl child in our society is seen as an utter liability. And right
from when they are young they are told to believe that they are good 
for nothing except creating a debt. (However there are places in our country
where the girlchild is seen as an asset. Grant Road, Falkland Road,
Sonagachi etc. are those places. Readers who are from Bombay or Calcutta
will know what I am talking about)

In the case of the marriage the guys always want the girl to be a SeetaDevi.
And the apotheosis of Bharatiya Naari is done in such a manner that 
the guys believe that the girl who is a serf to the husband is the best
girl on earth. 

There are three very important rights that all of us are given The right
to life, the right to property and the right to liberty. In case of arranged
marriages it is the third one that is infringed upon. It also goes to
the extent of emotional blackmail to brutal force. 

Taking dowry has no justification on legal or moral grounds. It simply
is a crime committed against God (for all those who believe) and against
humanity, truth and justice (for all those who don't) and against
reality itself (for all those who don't believe in either)

One thing is certain. If we continue to restrict the freedom of our own
people by cooked up customs, and exploit them in the name of tradition and
religion, and seek refuge in the umbrella of culture, the there is only
only one destiny.

We are all destined to DOOM.

Sincerely
Michael

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|  Michael Yesudas         |  The control of the means of production   |
|  Mechanical Engineering  |  of wealth is the absolute control of     |
|  University of Houston   |  human life itself                        |
|  mece21x@jetson.uh.edu   |                    --   Hilaire Belloc    |
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala