Dowry Abuse: A Worse Neglect

 Dowry Abuse: A Worse Neglect

That day, I met the family of a young woman fighting for her life. She had suffered 70% burns—her body charred, her spirit barely clinging on. Her crime? She hadn’t brought enough dowry. Her husband and in-laws wanted ₹5 lakhs and a car. When demands weren’t met, they responded with fire. This wasn’t an isolated incident—it was a chilling example of a widespread, deeply entrenched violence that we, as a society, continue to ignore or normalize.

Dowry giving and taking are illegal in India. The Dowry Prohibition Act has been in place for over six decades. Yet, this practice thrives—openly, shamelessly. In most North Indian households, dowry isn’t a cultural relic of the past—it’s a living, breathing system. From the moment a girl is born, her parents begin saving, not for her education or well-being, but for her wedding. Not for her dreams, but for her departure. Not for her life, but for her transaction.

It’s a kind of slow, sanctioned violence. Parents skip investing in a girl’s health, her ambitions, her voice—but they will spend their lives accumulating gold and gifts. The irony is cruel: Indian families rarely train girls to win medals or accolades; instead, they train them to remain quiet, to endure, and eventually to be handed over like goods in an auction—decorated in jewelry, burdened with shame, and told this is what makes a “good daughter.”

And dowry doesn’t ensure safety. It doesn’t buy love, respect, or dignity. The myth that it secures a girl’s future is one of the most dangerous lies ever sold. A woman can bring a million rupees and still be harassed, tortured, or killed. Because the issue isn’t just the money—it’s the idea that women are liabilities. That they must "earn" their place in a household with gifts and submission.

I know this intimately—not just from my work as a lawyer, researcher, and social worker, but from my own life.

My parents, too, saved obsessively for my marriage. They spent more on ceremonies, jewelry, gifts, and dowry than they ever did on supporting my aspirations. I remember telling them—insisting—that I didn’t want dowry. That I didn’t even want to get married. I wanted to study, to dream, to build a life on my own terms. But my voice was drowned in emotional blackmail.

“What will society say?”
“What will the relatives think?”
“What kind of parents don’t give anything to their daughter?”

They weren’t worried about my happiness. They weren’t listening to my dreams. They were held hostage by the judgments of a rotten society that punishes the bold and rewards the complicit. My refusal didn’t matter. My discomfort didn’t matter. What mattered was “what people would say.”

And I ask—when will this change? When will parents value their daughters as human beings, not as burdens to be packaged and handed off with bribes disguised as blessings? When will girls stop being raised for marriage and start being raised for life? Who will smash this deeply embedded patriarchy? 

Dowry is not just a cultural “expectation.” It is a crime. It is a human rights violation. And the silence around it—especially among the educated, the middle class, the so-called “progressive” families—is deafening.

The Indian society must stop romanticizing extravagant weddings and start asking uncomfortable questions. We must stop calling dowry “gifts” and name it for what it is: extortion. We must challenge every ritual, every tradition, every pressure that demands a woman pay for her place in society with gold and obedience.

And most of all, society must teach girls that they are not commodities. They do not have to buy love or acceptance. That they do not have to play along with systems that are designed to destroy them.

Dowry abuse is the fault of the in-laws who demand dowry and commit violence. It is also the failure of every parent who believes a daughter's worth is measured in ornaments. It is the failure of every community that prefers a "settled marriage" over an educated girl with dreams. It is the failure of the state, of the courts, of law enforcement that looks away until it’s too late—until a woman is burned, bruised, broken, or dead.

Enough is enough.

This is not just about one woman in a hospital bed. It’s about a system that kills women slowly, through silence, shame, and gold.

Let us stop asking “what will society say,” and start asking:
What will it take to end this violence?