Social evils - something that made our society tough to live in. All of these social evils had a very positive mindset with which they were originally started. These reasons were later misinterpreted by people who could not understand the motive. When these kinds of rumours and misinterpretations spread, they caused torture in the lives of many people who started getting discriminated against for something they had no control over. Among the many social evils prevalent in the earlier society of India one of the main ones was the Dowry system. Dowry also called ‘dahej’ in Hindi refers to the gifts demanded from the side of the groom as a gift from the bride’s family.
Every social evil made life tough for different fragments of Indian society. The dowry system aimed majorly at the girl child. Female education was not given much importance in ancient Indian society. The reason for this was early marriage. The motive behind starting this system of early marriage was that a young girl will be easier to mould and easier to teach the way the household of her in-laws is run compared to a girl who has lived her life and is mature with her set mindset and way of running the house. However, the interpretation of this was taken the wrong way and girls started being married off to people more than twice their age and they were not allowed to study after getting married. Dowry was a system that made every girl’s life torture. Since the birth of a girl child, the parents were told to start accumulating wealth to give off to her future husband in the form of dowry money.
The story behind why dowry was started is very intriguing. It all started in the ancient roman empire. Dowry was originally meant to be for the girl's betterment and to give her an equal position in the household. When it initially started it had the intention of allowing the girl to be able to inherit her parent's property with equal rights as her brothers. Back then after marriage, the girl changed her surname. It was considered that she had left behind her own family and accepted her husband's family as her own. This would mean that all the wealth, happiness, and sad times of her husband's family were now hers too, and vice-versa. Thus the property and wealth were given to the family of the groom as the family included the groom’s parents who were supposedly more experienced and mature and would know when and where to use that money. It was mainly a way for the girl to inherit the property.
The concept started spreading and till the educated people it was understood that dowry was a way to introduce equality but unfortunately the uneducated people made their interpretations of this. They spread the belief that dowry was a payment that the bride's side gave to the family of the groom as a way of selling their daughter. Moreover, the custom changed from the bride’s parents giving what they desire to the groom’s family placing their demands and the family of the girl going into heavy debt to fulfil the demands. This caused a lot of other social evils like killing the girl child as soon as she was born or even killing her in the womb of the mother.
Even if the girl was allowed to live she was mentally tortured. Seeing her family members work hard every single day and still not being able to have the necessities just because a majority of the money earned went into her dowry. It has been proven through various surveys that girls especially are very emotional. Their respect for their family and their connection with them is greater than any other bond. Seeing them suffer so hard thus was grave mental torture for the girls. Many a time if the needs were not fulfilled on the day of the marriage, the girl was physically tortured after her marriage by her in-law's side of the family. In ancient Indian society, about 1000 deaths per day on average were due to underpayment of dowry. Girls who believed that they had caused their family trouble decided to end their life which would also be the end of the trouble.
Fortunately, the government of India among the many countries realised this grave problem and tried to rectify the situation by making it illegal. It is still practised in some rural parts of India but things are changing. With the growth of the modern mindset, girls are becoming independent and even boys are helping out by ensuring that their families do not ask for dowry. Marriage is a beautiful relationship between two people who treat each other as equals. It is a happy event as both the bride and groom begin a new chapter in their life and it should remain that way. It should not end up with the girl questioning her existence.
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