Both men and women are educated. They have the capability to understand and make others understand. If they want money, they should work and earn. Tendency to get everything by doing nothing is bad.
Gifts are something which a person gives to the other person with good wishes and joy. If such gifts are given during marriage, it becomes dowry. Both men and women receive dowry during marriage. Nobody should force each other's family regarding such affairs. That's illegal.
Presently dowry given to any government job holder is also illegal. He cannot take even a Re 1 coin from his in-laws. He will be jailed. Though many people ignore. They love money more than relationships.

Is there any such law which particularly forbid government job holders from taking dowry? Actually, I am not aware of it. I thought the law is only applicable if the woman is tortured for not bringing dowry.

But yes, if dowry is banned for all then many evil social practices like child marriage, gender discrimination, female infanticides etc will automatically disappear which seems to be so much prevalent in many parts of north India. Luckily,we do not face the dowry related problems in our place.

Money is often given as gift, not dowry ;) :cheer: :cheer: :laugh:

The reason why we do not face dowry related problems is because in our society love marriage is more common than arrange marriage.We don't have the system of giving money or things as gifts to the groom's family except for the traditional cloth given to the elders of the family.

thats the reason even i prefer love marriage over arrange marriage. that saves a lot of money of both the families and it can be utilized somewhere else

Even love marriages if undergone under parents supervision will be lavishing and girls parents have to spend the amount that groom parents decide.

Exactly ! there is bound to be a tug of war when parents come into the picture and then love takes a back seat and parents and family pressures take over and many boys bow down to that...

Yes, I have seen such examples. What is shocking is the girls themselves are keen on the dowry stuff because they want to be able to have an upper hand on the men they love!

Everyone say it's bad to take dowry. Ok. I agreed.
But does it mean, parents can't give anything to girls or girls don't deserve parents' property? Only boys? :evil:
Actually, through centuries, people misused it and changed it to a demanding one and everyone accepted the change.... result.... girl children became curses to many parents.
It's not the case of poor families only
Let me saw a few words of a family staying near my home.
He has 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls. He owns more than 1 acre land nearby, by roadside...it cost crores now :evil: :evil:
Both the girls are above 40 now and still unmarried.
Reason.....father was not willing to give them property. Instead he made both her girls nuns. (I think so)
His sons work in the fields and will be payed for their work as well :laugh: :laugh:
Such cases are also seen in our country...
Fearing family property will be lost, girl kids remain unmarried :evil: :evil: :evil:

Sandhya, these are two different issues, the example you stated is the girls willingly choosing to remain unwed for loss of their share in the ancestral property.

It is true that parents want to give their daughters something as a gift but in 99% cases, the gift is coerced from them and the parents many often go bankrupt to fulfill the demands of the girls' in-laws. The girls too have a right on the ancestral property of their parents but should not be confused with dowry.

Sandhya, these are two different issues, the example you stated is the girls willingly choosing to remain unwed for loss of their share in the ancestral property.

It is true that parents want to give their daughters something as a gift but in 99% cases, the gift is coerced from them and the parents many often go bankrupt to fulfill the demands of the girls' in-laws. The girls too have a right on the ancestral property of their parents but should not be confused with dowry.

yes, according to laws girls too have a right on ancestral property.
As I have stated, this right has been misused from early times....and now, condition is getting more worse than ever :evil: :evil:

Let us remember that we are discussing here a very complex social phenomenon. Earlier there was a school of thought which rather linearly and naively believed that spread of education would wipe this disgrace off the face of India but it has been proved to be wrong. Dowry cases are more amongst the elite class who have enough financial and intellectual muscles to circumvent all laws of the land to perpetuate this barbaric practice.

I totally agree with those views, in fact in some communities they even have a price tag on 'boys' depending on their qualifications...and this is something that has spread even to those communities which earlier refrained from doing so...

Shockingly, I know of a few cases personally where I find some would-be brides are quite happy about it and mind you- they have higher degrees! That's why it has proved to be such an intractable problem til date!

I think it is mental conditioning, they tend to think that they have paid the right price and have not been deceived in their choice , very much like buying a branded item from a top range boutique lol.. :cheer:

That's true! Lately, it has been all about branding and pricing, especially among the elite class and the newly grown rich class, thanks to the IT and BPO boom. Amongst them, it is all about designer stuff so right tag on the right groom is all taken as a matter of class consciousness and therefore cases of dowry are rising even more among the educated.

Sometimes the amount of dowry they ask for is simply amazing and that too from not so rich and prosperous families and what is even more pathetic is that the families go all out to accommodate them and after all that , the girl comes back and files for a divorce , this is what happened here with one of the marriages and the girls parents have got it both ways...

Let us remember that we are discussing here a very complex social phenomenon. Earlier there was a school of thought which rather linearly and naively believed that spread of education would wipe this disgrace off the face of India but it has been proved to be wrong. Dowry cases are more amongst the elite class who have enough financial and intellectual muscles to circumvent all laws of the land to perpetuate this barbaric practice.

I totally agree with those views, in fact in some communities they even have a price tag on 'boys' depending on their qualifications...and this is something that has spread even to those communities which earlier refrained from doing so...

Shockingly, I know of a few cases personally where I find some would-be brides are quite happy about it and mind you- they have higher degrees! That's why it has proved to be such an intractable problem til date!

I think it is mental conditioning, they tend to think that they have paid the right price and have not been deceived in their choice , very much like buying a branded item from a top range boutique lol.. :cheer:

That's true! Lately, it has been all about branding and pricing, especially among the elite class and the newly grown rich class, thanks to the IT and BPO boom. Amongst them, it is all about designer stuff so right tag on the right groom is all taken as a matter of class consciousness and therefore cases of dowry are rising even more among the educated.

Sometimes the amount of dowry they ask for is simply amazing and that too from not so rich and prosperous families and what is even more pathetic is that the families go all out to accommodate them and after all that , the girl comes back and files for a divorce , this is what happened here with one of the marriages and the girls parents have got it both ways...

Yes, and many a times parents of the girl take huge loans from the banks to be able to give everything to their daughter, this is mostly among societies where prestige is measured in gold and cash. Sadly, the girl, although well educated supports them in this thinking it is her right to get all that can be had from the parents. I feel this is be even more disgusting than demands made by the in-laws!