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How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

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Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#91

Post by lelanthran »

dotnet00 wrote: post #42
speeder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The logic behind dowries was that women were a burden since they would be relying on the husband for food, shelter and protection. They were leaving their original family, thus reducing the number of people who'd need to be fed and sheltered, while the husband's family was taking on that duty, thus they claimed to deserve compensation. Such cultures suffered from similar other ills like mistreating or kicking out wid…

> In my family, dowry for the current generation has been passed off as "gifts intended for the couple's married life",

I married twice[1] and neither times was the issue of dowry even considered[2]. Nor for anyone I know (close family, extended family, just about every indian person in South Africa).

[1] Serially, not in parallel :-)

[2] Nor "expensive gifts" as a euphemism for dowry.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#92

Post by lelanthran »

booi wrote: post #57
QuercusMax wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because obviously, the only thing a household needs for success… is linens

> Because obviously, the only thing a household needs for success… is linens

I think you take for granted just how difficult and time-consuming it is to produce cloth and material for clothing.

If a woman got married and had one child, there'd be little to no time to make clothing for the second child that followed almost immediately after[1].

[1] Contraceptive, while being an ancient invention, was never widely used until recently (past 50 years, maybe?)

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#93

Post by WeylandYutani »

paxys wrote: post #36
questime wrote: post #9

I 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.

Religion, culture, social pressure, groupthink etc. all routinely trump basic economics in every society in the world.

True but economics can change culture.

In the Netherlands women are no longer entitled to their husbands money after a divorce. This forces women to maintain an effective career or be left behind in poverty. No more "stay at home" mom's. Sometimes you have to nudge people into freedom.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#94

Post by ZephyrBlu »

kelipso wrote: post #89
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of a cultural practice that I cannot fathom. Not "wow that was crazy for the time", but "I don't understand how this ever made sense". I guess it's borne out of extreme resource scarcity? The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around.

Lol, is this some sort of act? Having to take care of aging parents and thus them being a burden on their children is a fairly common trope in western film and literature. Common worldwide.

I actually typed out an addendum about children and elderly being burdens but adults not being, but deleted it because I thought it was extraneous since I was specifying "permanent burden regardless of what they do".

Children/elderly are not permanent burdens because they grow up/die and they can sometimes do useful things.

The difference here is that women are classified as burdens regardless of what they do. Cook, clean, take care of the house, your family, your husband, etc. Doesn't matter, you're still a burden. That's fucked up.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#95

Post by ZephyrBlu »

antisthenes wrote: post #90
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of a cultural practice that I cannot fathom. Not "wow that was crazy for the time", but "I don't understand how this ever made sense". I guess it's borne out of extreme resource scarcity? The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around.

> The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around There are millions of such people, but it's not based on sex. People from the bottom parts of intelligence distribution are a "burden", because no amount of labor they produce will generate more value for society than they consume (in food, housing, healthcare). In developed countries we are able to collecti…

Yes, that's true but like you say most societies try to socialize some of that burden. There seem to be no such socialization in this case.

> Some people can generate positive and negative value through different periods of their lives. Kids

I understand that, which is why I specified "permanent". In this case, women are permanent burdens regardless of how old they are. That's the fucked up bit.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#96

Post by automatoney »

antisthenes wrote: post #90
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of a cultural practice that I cannot fathom. Not "wow that was crazy for the time", but "I don't understand how this ever made sense". I guess it's borne out of extreme resource scarcity? The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around.

> The idea that someone is a permanent burden regardless of what they do is hard for me to wrap my head around There are millions of such people, but it's not based on sex. People from the bottom parts of intelligence distribution are a "burden", because no amount of labor they produce will generate more value for society than they consume (in food, housing, healthcare). In developed countries we are able to collecti…

Actually, archeological evidence shows that even in extremely harsh environments, many early humans took care of people who were unable to work.

From the article linked below:

"...an idea of what it must have taken to keep Burial 9 alive. Paralyzed from the waist down and with severely limited arm and neck movement, he depended on others to provide food and water, clean him and move him to prevent pressure sores. 'From the bones alone, we can say this person lived with a disease that required help from others to survive,'...

The people who took care of Burial 9, for example, scratched out a precarious existence using stone tools to fish and raise pigs in prehistoric Vietnam. Signs of malnutrition in the bones of people buried nearby suggested famine was a constant threat. 'In a small society which was very stressed, that means somebody who couldn't contribute or go out hunting or undertake a lot of tasks was supported, accommodated, and adjusted to,'"

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/17/8788963...

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#97

Post by failuser »

moffkalast wrote: post #31
questime wrote: post #9

I 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.

Goes to show that supply and demand theory doesn't really work in practice.

Gender balance is more like clean air than like butter. Most people will benefit from it, but individual rational choices work in the opposite direction.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#98

Post by jschveibinz »

The average net dowry is $361 in India.

From a BBC article at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57677253

“the researchers found that a groom's family spends on average about 5,000 rupees ($67; £48) in real terms in gifts to the bride's family. The gifts from the bride's family, unsurprisingly, cost seven times more at about 32,000 rupees ($429). This implied an average real net dowry of 27,000 rupees ($361).”

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#99

Post by dotnet00 »

lelanthran wrote: post #91
dotnet00 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic behind dowries was that women were a burden since they would be relying on the husband for food, shelter and protection. They were leaving their original family, thus reducing the number of people who'd need to be fed and sheltered, while the husband's family was taking on that duty, thus they claimed to deserve compensation. Such cultures suffered from similar other ills like mistreating or kicking out wid…

> In my family, dowry for the current generation has been passed off as "gifts intended for the couple's married life", I married twice[1] and neither times was the issue of dowry even considered[2]. Nor for anyone I know (close family, extended family, just about every indian person in South Africa). [1] Serially, not in parallel :-) [2] Nor "expensive gifts" as a euphemism for dowry.

That's nice to hear.

I had been pretty naive to the euphemism since it seemed to be entirely the wife's family's call (and to an extent the extended family avoided those conversations guessing that we would be opposed to it, having grown up in the West). I only managed to piece it together when it came to marriages in my immediate family. They just claimed that it was stuff that their daughter would end up needing to buy anyway and for the most part that is how it turned out, but I have also heard plenty of gossiping about how someone's daughter-in-law didn't bring X or Y thing.

I still have a few years before I think I'll be ready to deal with relationships, but of course will definitely be making it clear that I have no expectations of 'gifts'.

Re: How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic

#100

Post by Dracophoenix »

adamrezich wrote: post #44
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #11

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?

this has always bothered me too, to the point of making me think that the "only a century ago, women were considered property" claim to either be a false oversimplification, or require far more justification than I've ever seen given to the topic. because like, I can sell my property, in addition to buying it—so I'm not really sure how that adds up, either.

The doctrine applied to married women is called coverture. Coverture deems that a married woman has no independent existence or right, but shares with her husband the benefits and (some of) the rights of he had possesses.

> because like, I can sell my property, in addition to buying it—so I'm not really sure how that adds up, either.

Bodily organs are recognized as property and yet many countries forbid their purchase or sale irrespective of the owner's or purchaser's consent.

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