Dowry Murders and Why They Exist

A dowry is something I remember hearing about for the fist time off an old John Wayne movie. I remember asking my dad it what it meant. To my surprise, people are still giving dowries in marriage. People aren't just giving dowries in marriage though; they are also being murdered over a dowry. Murder over dowry is becoming more common in places like Sarenga Village, near Calcutta, India, where one family has been accused of trying to kill a woman for not completing the dowry demands.

For those who don't know what a dowry is, it is an agreement made between two families when a daughter and son get married. The agreement is usually that the wife's family will pay so much to the groom's family once the marriage takes place or over so many years.

Just recently, a 23-year-old Indian wife was allegedly set on fire by her husband's family after not completing the entire amount of dowry that the family had asked for. This case took place in Sarenga Village and Sonali, the victim, had been rescued and sent to CMCH for treatment, according to The Statesman out of India.

Cases like these seldom make the news headlines, but there have been reports of dowry abuse and murder, such as one family torturing the wife mentally and physically and some going as far as killing her over a dowry.

On June 21, there was a report of a dowry murder in the Indian village of Pahari. A young 28-year-old woman was allegedly killed after not meeting the demands of her in-laws. Tripti Khandelwal's family has said that she was killed by her husband and that the police have not handled the case properly, as reported by MeriNews.

Most families that offer a dowry, or are demanded to give a dowry, do so so that their child can have a better life. These families set up these marriages to other families so that their daughter can have a chance at becoming or doing something better once in marriage. There probably isn't a thought that goes through their minds about their child being killed or harmed over a dowry.

I come from a family whose marriage was arranged only after my mother was looking for a way out of the country she was living in. It wasn't until two years later when she and my father fell in love. They were married for 12 years before their marriage fell apart. There was no dowry involved in the marriage between my parents and they both had entered into an agreement in the marriage that they would both go their separate ways as soon as possible. It is funny how things can end the way that they do. My parents had two children between them and seemed happy for the longest. No one would have ever guessed that they only knew each other for 24 hours before being married.

There are many reasons why people enter into an arranged marriage, some work out and others end up in distress. In the United States we are taught marriage should be based on love, but in other countries, love in a marriage is usually grow and founded on what one family can offer the other. We don't have to agree with the ways things are or even like them. Some would view a dowry as a family paying someone to take their child, but I view it as a family trying to get their child out into a much better life after looking at some of the situations that many of the women have to go through.