Can someone explain how it relates to property, given that the daughters family pays the dowry. Isn't this like "I'm paying you to take my daughter off my hands". If the girl is property, shouldn't the grooms family pay the daughters family? Like an exchange for the girl?
How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
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Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#12Can someone explain how it relates to property, given that the daughters family pays the dowry. Isn't this like "I'm paying you to take my daughter off my hands". If the girl is property, shouldn't the grooms family pay the daughters family? Like an exchange for the girl?
Yeah I don't get this either.
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#13Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
what the fuck
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#14[deleted]
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#15Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property...
If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense.
In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, it was expected then that the husband's family would pay the bride's family enough money to replace the "lost labor" of having one of their workers moving away.
I don't know the logic behind dowries though, much less why it persists now.
EDIT: making clearer:
Bride Price: Man pays the Woman's father. "buying" her, and giving in payment a value expected to be equal to the labor her father lost with her moving away.
Dowry: Woman's father pays the Man. Never saw someone "buying" something by getting paid for it... thus why I think Dowry has nothing to do with women being property. (instead it is more like Women are a burden you want to offload).
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#16India's anti dowry laws tried to address this but went way overboard. Some highlights: https://theswaddle.com/indias-dowry-laws-are-ineffective-eas...
* if a man is sentenced on a dowry related charge, his whole family, including babies and elderly grandparents, is jailed with him
* the law requires immediate arrest with no bail based on just a verbal accusation, so the threat of this is often used as a tool during divorce for the wife to get what she wants
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#17I don't completely understand how dowries are a thing - isn't there a massive gender imbalance in India, wouldn't dowries go the other way? Curious why this is not the case. This is awful.
Traditions are very hard to break.
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#18Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property... If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense. In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, i…
From the article it looks like the dowry is a form of extortion - keep us well paid or something bad will happen to your daughter.
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#19Dowries are a plague on humanity. They’re rooted in the idea that women are property. I lived in India in the 1970s as a child. At that time the shorthand was “cooking accident” when new brides were killed. As in, “The bride’s father couldn’t pay the dowry. Too bad she had that unfortunate cooking accident.” The local man who did our laundry had four daughters, and it was considered a curse. He killed himself because…
Not sure how dowries are rooted in the idea that women are property... If you were talking about bride price then it would make more sense. In many cultures the men had to pay the father of the bride, thus people in a sense were literally selling their daughters. Still there was a reason for this at the time, in those cultures, women moved to live with the husband family, and at same time their labor was important, i…
What I've heard is that it was to ensure that a household was set up for success. Similar to the idea of a hope chest - a girl would assemble all the necessary linen components a house would need by sewing them herself. Once she had accumulated the requisite skills and equipment to run a household, she'd be eligible for marriage.
Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic
#20The impact of this has been felt for more than a decade now. Many of my friends had trouble finding brides, despite being nothing wrong with them - as a result, some of my friends were never married and are in their 40s now. It is absolutely terrible and gut-wrenching to see this Darwinism in action, as if we are wildlife. The people who are responsible for this are all considered "decent" people in society. The values, the customs are from another era, and are not fit for anyone living in modern era. All my Indian friends, please gain some perspective and recognize the ills of "customs" too, along with the good that comes with it. The country and the world will be better for it.