Contexts        

Friends in this chapter have limited excerpts to minimal introduction and not gone too much into what different scholars said.

What (was given) before the (nuptial) fire, what (was given) on the bridal possession, what was given in token of love, and what was received from her brother, mother or father, that is called the six-fold property of a woman.

(Such property), as well as a gift subsequent and what was given (to her) by her affectionate husband, shall go to her offspring (even) if she dies in the lifetime of her husband. – The Laws of Manu (200 a.d.).

Dowry is the wealth – money, goods or property – that a woman brings her husband at marriage. Indian Express, New Delhi, 29/9/2000.

It is difficult to define contemporary dowry with the simplicity and clarity that Manu gave to the term stridhan, or the six-fold property of a woman. Thus in Manu’s eyes a woman’s right to own, control and dispose of her own wealth, given to her by her family and husband or his family, was unarguable. It is interesting to note that Stridhan defined in the Hindu Succession Act (one of the five acts that make up the Hindu Code of 1956) as wealth of a woman, which includes her dowry and any other wealth, such as gifts from her conjugal family. The same act states that a woman’s income is her sole property, over which she has full legal rights including those of disposal & sale, and a woman’s property is not conjoined with her husband’s for purposes of tax. A woman also had rights to a share of her father’s estate if she remained unmarried.

Much has happened to the notion of property. With the coming of the British came the idea of the introduction of land as a commodity and thus alienable by sale or foreclosure. The customary rights of women were the biggest casualties in the transformation of a peasant economy to an unevenly modern & capitalistic one. The concept of a woman’s right to property, even in its unequal way seemed to have been entirely forfeited and dowry seemed to have become a matter for aggressive negotiation by the groom’s family.

Dowry can be defined to mean: “money or any other things estimable in terms of money, demanded from the wife or parents, or other relatives, where such a demand is not properly referable to any legally recognized claim and is relatable only to the wife’s having married into the husband’s family”. Before we look at this system we have to consider the other form of marriage payment, i.e. mul or bride-price. My own research in the 19th century records points to female infanticide having been widely practiced, and perhaps even more often, in communities that did not give dowries but accepted bride price, as well as among Muslims. By 1938 Altekar suggested that dowry, which had been “a voluntary gift of pure affection and presented no impediment in the settlement of a daughter’s marriage until the middle of the previous century, had for the last fifty years begun to assume scandalous proportions and its was now high time to put an end to this evil custom that had driven many innocent maiden to commit suicide”.