The BBC has done some excellent reporting over the past few months about the continuing problem of grooms and their families demanding large dowries from brides and occasionally resorting to violence if the dowries are not forthcoming.
The issue was brought to the forefront again in May of this year when 21-year-old Nisha Sharma had her husband and his mother arrested under India’s 1961 Anti-Dowry Act. Sharma told police that initially her husband-to-be did not request a dowry but just minutes before the planned wedding demanded $25,000 from Sharma’s father.
When Sharma’s father explained he did not have that kind of money, the groom and his family members assaulted Sharma’s father.
Other women have not been so lucky. The BBC cited Indian government statistics claiming as many as 7,000 women were murdered by their husbands and/or in-laws in 2001 in disputes over dowry payments. Indian domestic violence activist Ranjana Kumari told The BBC,
Somteimes women are tortured to squeeze more money out of their families and in extreme cases they’re killed. Then the husband is free to remarry and get another dowry.
According to the BBC, the dowry problem is one of the factors driving Indian families to use sex-selective abortion (also illegal in India) in order to avoid having female children.
Sources:
India’s dowry deaths. Lucy Ash, the BBC, July 16, 2003.
Dowry demand lands groom in jail. Rajyasri Rao, The BBC, May 14, 2003.