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Articles: My Thoughts | To Bed.....permanently.
- Mr. Vachaspati Velavartipati
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The root cause of the problem behind dowry deaths is Hindu religious orthodoxy and its degenerate caste system that divides and redivides Hindus into innumerable classes, groups, subgroups and factions and provides manipulative socioreligious power to the 'upper' castes to drive the 'lower' castes to subservience, humiliation, poverty, and death. Dowry is derived from the ancient Hindu customs of 'kanyadan' and 'stridhan'.
In 'kanyadan', the father of the bride offers the father of the groom money or property, etc. whereas for 'stridhan', the bride herself gets jewelry and clothes at the time of her marriage, usually from her relatives or friends. In 'varadakshina', the father of the bride presents the groom cash or kind. All of these could be done voluntarily and out of affection and love. These days, these customs have become coercive and brutally dangerous.
The caste-based Hindu marriage system is sacramental and not contractual or civil (Sarkar Shastri in Dutta, 1984). According to this system, a marriage is forever, and there is no scope for a separation. Among the various ceremonies previously practiced, the ceremony in front of a 'godly' fire ('Yajna' in Sanskrit) has taken over, a ceremony that has resemblance with the ancient Roman 'confarreatio' marriage (Dutta, 1984). An analysis of this marriage would find its root in the antiquated system of 'marrying a wife by capture'. Examples of these customs proliferate throughout the post-Vedic Hindu history. This form of marriage began the practice of dowry, where originally, the family of the bride would accept gifts and money from the groom's (potential conqueror’s) family as an alternative to bloodshed during the capture of the bride (Dutta, 1984). This practice still remains among the 'lower caste' Hindus and also Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. A later modification of this system has paved way for the present coercive and exploitative patriarchal dowry system primarily practiced by the 'upper caste' Hindus. However, dowry is an economic and definitely not a religious matter. The degenerate caste system and its sponsor conservative social and political rulers of India have provided a religious twist to it for their own interests. Some ancient Hindu scriptures such as Manu-Samhita and Gautama-Samhita, where the wife is deemed to be a subordinate 'property' of the husband and is barred from all religious and official activities, have also fueled the oppressive aspects of the practice.
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