I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting is my object.
My Last Duchess These lines tell us more about dowry than any drier article ever can.
There are a few axioms of Indian marriages.
If the groom is a government official, doctor or lawyer, then he can ask for greater dowry than a private worker. If the bride happens to be pretty and working, then the dowry goes down. If the guy is a high paid techie, then he can demand the moon from the girls’ parents whether she be working or studying.
Dowry is never disallowed in our society and pre-nuptial agreements are virtually unheard of. A 23 year old PhD student, Priyanka Verma, who is also a teacher at Vanasthali Vidyapith, has been recently left in the lurch by a highly paid software engineer at Gurgaon. Problems began at the engagement party.
The boy’s family demanded a car. Rs 10 lakh was asked for buying a flat at Gurgaon. The girl’s family tried to buy peace by giving them the car. The boy said the car was too small. And ultimately the bridegroom’s family has disappeared. The wedding was supposed to happen on Tuesday and everything had been arranged accordingly. Now the girl’s family has lost face and somewhere the boy along with his parents, is enjoying life to the hilt.
Virginia Woolf had once pointed out in her celebrated article, A Room of One’s Own, how more men wrote on women than women wrote or were allowed to write on themselves. Also the essay’s title makes us notice that often women do not even have a room of their own. Right from Aristotle to our day, women are treated as so many cattle are. Feminists have a theory called the ‘male gaze’.
It includes not merely ogling at a woman but really controlling every aspect of a woman’s life. Male dominance controls everything feminine; what a girl will wear, where she will go, and how she will express herself in love. In fact, males control what she will think or rather, what she will not. In this case, Priyanka Verma had to leave her job and studies to appease the groom’s family. They do not like either working or studying women.
This case by itself is just another regular tragedy; not being newsworthy. Yet it very clearly highlights the problems that plague Indian women. Gender biases run deep. If women fight publicly on the street they are termed crazy or plain rude. But when a guy fights another guy, they are termed macho. This line of thinking effectively prevents women from fighting back. Today if Priyanka Verma tries to protest, she will just be termed an uncouth woman disgracing the high ideals womanhood.
We respect our women as mothers, goddesses and muses to insult them in real life.
