Dowry System : The Cancer of Society

By Huma Parveen

Dowry, widely known as the cancer of society, continues to be the most serious social problem. The incidents related to dowry system paint a sordid picture of diminishing moral values. Many innocent women are burnt or threw out of their homes by their husbands and in-laws.

The problem is too critical to be solved. Administration, government, parliament, law and order, social traditions all have failed rather miserably in putting an end to it. Only Islamic teachings can stop this grievous and heinous crime as Islam does not permit taking or giving dowry.

Dowry is the result of overvaulting greed. Every person wants more and more money and to achieve this, he does whatever he likes and even stoops himself down to the level of demanding dowry. He cannot even think what is right and what is wrong. When the people, who have unmarried sons, fail to meet their costly demands with their honest earnings, they follow the path of dowry system. Due to this greed, there is a steep climb in the cases of dowry. Thus this tradition has become a serious bug of our country.

In India, dowry cases have been taking place for centuries. But, in the past, there were no serious and grievous incidents of dowry. It was accepted as a social tradition of providing gifts for each other. But now it has become one of the tools of rich people to show off their richness and greedy people to fulfil their immoral demands.

Thanks to modern industrialisation and materialism, birth of new brutal, barbaric and inhuman traditions is taking place. People try to enjoy luxuries even when these are beyond the means available to them. But then luxuries know no end. The fulfilment of one demand leads one to take up another, and this vicious cycle goes on. The blackmailing of bride’s parents by the greedy parents of bridegroom for extorting dowry is an easy way of hoarding wealth. And parents of the bride stand helpless before the circumstances.

The ever widening chasm between the rich and the poor resulting in uncontrolled lust for wealth is another important cause of continuation of dowry system. In India the greatly increasing number of rich people is giving way to the new cause of dowry system. In the modern age of selfish, economical and materialistic patterns of life, the poor are not able to cross the line stretched by the rich even if they apply their full efforts to fulfil their demands.

Then, if they have an unmarried son, they find it a ‘God-given’ opportunity to become rich in a matter of days. And the social system established by the greedy people helps such poor men. The poor and needy people having young marriageable girls to be married off have to bear the brunt. Many unmarried girls have crossed their age limit of marriage due to this dowry system; some girls even committed suicide. Owing to this system not only the people who have faced this dilemma but the people who have small daughters are also suffering.

The parents of daughters, who are suffering from the curse of dowry system, are also ‘criminals’. After getting news of their daughter’s suffering from this new system, the parents advise her to live in her in-law’s house and win their heart by her good deeds. The end of this is the bride-burning, bride-suicide or at least continued mental and physical torture at the hands of her in-laws. In spite of several laws to contain the dowry system, the parents do not even gather courage to file a complaint against the perpetrators of this crime.

In the Muslim society, Islam does not permit to give and take dowry. Dowry is prohibited, and thus a sin. Dowry is a cause of utter shame and disrespect in this life and a cause of punishment in the life after death. According to natural justice the responsibility of earning and maintenance of the family is rests on the man. And as such earning wealth by means of dowry is wrong. If this practice is not stopped, human society will have to bear more serious results in the form of decreasing ratio of females.