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isn't it the dowry goes to the groom's parents? so that if the groom is a doctor, the higher the dowry? this is to compensate the grooms' parents for their expenses in raising the groom and not as a seed/capital for the newly weds?
pardon if im ignorant of where the dowry goes
Perhaps that is one interpretation of it, but again it makes very little sense given that India is a highly patrilineal culture. So the son continues living with the parents and providing for them (thereby compensating their spending on him) and additionally he brings a daughter-in-law who will live with them, look after them and give birth to and raise children who carry on their bloodline. Therefore it is utterly exploitative that in addition to giving up her family for his and looking after them, the daughter in law is also supposed to provide for them financially while the son offers neither domestic nor financial support to his wife's parents. Little wonder that girls are viewed as a burden and aborted at such an alarming rate!
In addition, in 'modern' wealthy India dowry often includes extravagant presents for the groom, typically expensive cars and luxury watches! Last year I was in an upscale restaurant with a few urbane, educated Indian friends and one of the men was congratulations on his engagement and asked jovially 'so which car will you get?'- this is the level of cultural acceptance of dowry that I personally witnessed even in the most supposedly liberated socioeconomic circles. Also, amongst the more nouveau riche Indians there is a trend of presenting the groom with extravagant presents in the wedding ceremony itself - recently a billionaire heiress provided her husband with all kinds of dowry including a helicopter, in front of their thousands of guests. And this was a wedding conducted amongst the upper crust of Indians in the UK!
isn't it the dowry goes to the groom's parents? so that if the groom is a doctor, the higher the dowry? this is to compensate the grooms' parents for their expenses in raising the groom and not as a seed/capital for the newly weds?
pardon if im ignorant of where the dowry goes
It can vary. It can be completely sabotaged by the groom's husband or be handed over entirely to the newly weds.
However in my opinion, if a dowry is demanded it doesnt matter anymore where it goes.
I do not deny that at times seed money is much needed, but it can come from both the families.
Perhaps that is one interpretation of it, but again it makes very little sense given that India is a highly patrilineal culture. So the son continues living with the parents and providing for them (thereby compensating their spending on him) and additionally he brings a daughter-in-law who will live with them, look after them and give birth to and raise children who carry on their bloodline. Therefore it is utterly exploitative that in addition to giving up her family for his and looking after them, the daughter in law is also supposed to provide for them financially while the son offers neither domestic nor financial support to his wife's parents. Little wonder that girls are viewed as a burden and aborted at such an alarming rate!
In addition, in 'modern' wealthy India dowry often includes extravagant presents for the groom, typically expensive cars and luxury watches! Last year I was in an upscale restaurant with a few urbane, educated Indian friends and one of the men was congratulations on his engagement and asked jovially 'so which car will you get?'- this is the level of cultural acceptance of dowry that I personally witnessed even in the most supposedly liberated socioeconomic circles. Also, amongst the more nouveau riche Indians there is a trend of presenting the groom with extravagant presents in the wedding ceremony itself - recently a billionaire heiress provided her husband with all kinds of dowry including a helicopter, in front of their thousands of guests. And this was a wedding conducted amongst the upper crust of Indians in the UK!
You are talking about a wide spectrum of society here. At one end we have a culture where parents are entirely dependent on their son and on the other end we have bride's parents gifting helicopters.
There is a big chunk in between where parents no longer depend on their kids, kids stay in nuclear family and actually in turn depends on their parents for child care support . I am an indian living in US and i have seen most of the americans with similar expectations from their children i.e. to marry and have kids.
Regarding bride's parents spending extravagantly, trust me its a phenomena common not just to India. And thats why i mentioned in my earlier post that a lot of girl's parents need to start saying No as well. The problem is at both ends.
You are talking about a wide spectrum of society here. At one end we have a culture where parents are entirely dependent on their son and on the other end we have bride's parents gifting helicopters.
There is a big chunk in between where parents no longer depend on their kids, kids stay in nuclear family and actually in turn depends on their parents for child care support . I am an indian living in US and i have seen most of the americans with similar expectations from their children i.e. to marry and have kids.
Regarding bride's parents spending extravagantly, trust me its a phenomena common not just to India. And thats why i mentioned in my earlier post that a lot of girl's parents need to start saying No as well. The problem is at both ends.
That's the point I'm trying to make. Dowry is an inherent part of Indian culture, and even the most wealthy social elite practise and demand it- it is simply not frowned upon as the disgusting, exploitative custom it is. Even the maids I mentioned will not spend money on critical needs like education but will ask employers for loans to fund this dowry- I have witnessed this with my own eyes, so I know it goes all the way across the spectrum from the vey bottom to the very top.
I've read several academic articles to try and understand it and they have shown that the amount of dowry (adjusted for inflation and as a percentage of family net worth) demanded by parents and grooms is actually increasing, not decreasing. You only have to look at the extravagant cars/ houses given as dowry and widely publicised by the Indian media (as part of the celebrity weddings that I mentioned) to understand the kind of stress this new consumerist culture puts on middle class and poor people to meet groom's dowry demands.
Trust me, talk to a Chinese/ Thai/ Saudi/ Ugandan person- learn about the practise of bride price and compensating the bride's family for patrilinearity and you will realise how very much worse Indian women have it, even compared to women from other patriarchal cultures! South Asia is the ONLY part of the world that despite being a heavily patriarchal and deeply unequal culture sees absolutely no shame in financially exploitating the woman and making her family provide for his! No non-South Asian person would even be able to comprehend the concept around a woman buying a husband with money, gold, cars and houses. I say this because my father comes from a very patriarchal culture but one that practises bride price and my personal experience is that it alters social dynamics so much compared to the frankly parasitic relationship norms that are widely prevalent in India.
And despite what you say India IS a patrilineal culture. Your point about nuclear families might be true in the USA where the majority of Indians are first generation immigrants but in India it has been found that 70-75% of urban families are patrilineal and involve the bride living with and caring for her in-laws. And of course, whether in the UK, USA or India , the Indian women do the majority of housework (see OECD data which shows Indian men do the least housework of all nationalities surveyed). How utterly shameful that despite all this she needs to pay a dowry to serve her husband and his family!
Again, dowry practise killed thousands of women directly through dowry deaths and millions of female infants indirectly (not feotus but infant! India is the ONLY country in the world where female infanticide is widely practised and sex ratios keeps declining even after birth- see the recent shameful UN warning about this). I can't believe I even need to explain why this practise is so evil and how widely prevalent it is should be obvious from the disastrous child and infant sex ratios that actually worsen with economic wealth!
I'm simply not going to engage in this debate anymore. Nevertheless, thank you for a civil discussion.
Last edited by GirlFromDalston; 11-18-2015 at 10:22 AM..
Even though dowry is still "undercover" part of the culture. The culture has changed to the point no one demands it straight out but alludes to it. The part about brides family paying for extravagate wedding is not unique to Indian culture. American parents pay for their daughter's wedding more than their sons.
My mother is British Indian but my father isn't, and I grew up in London. I've visited India several times and everytime I come back feeling so thankful that my mother married a non-Indian man and that we live in the UK. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to be a young woman growing up in India!
Indian men complaining of racist assumptions against them is a supreme irony given that every advert, film and music video in the country features scantily clad white women being fetishised, groped and generally degraded by horrid, sexually predatory Indian men! It's the single most racist country I have ever been to and it was incredibly embarrassing how much creepy fawning and harassment my blonde friend was subjected to when she decided to visit.
Many of the Indian men you encounter on the streets will spit, empty their noses and excrete on the roads which is just grotesque and uncouth and not something I've encountered in any other countrymen, no matter how poor. I've been stalked, groped and cat called more times each day I spent on the the Indian streets/ in public transport than my entire life in London, which is hardly the safest of cities in itself! There is also a BIG problem with alcoholism amongst working class Indian men and nearly every affluent household will have a maid who is forced to work under in humane conditions (with no formal contract or worker rights) to support her abusive husband's drinking habit.
Indian culture raises men to be dowry gold-diggers (all other patriarchal cultures have the opposite, a bride price, to compensate women for their domestic labour and their sacrifice in moving into and caring for the husband's family) and social life for the upper classes revolves around gaudy, obscenely ostentatious wedding paid for by the bride's family, where the groom proudly accepts jewellery, cars, expensive watches from his bride! And so much of the daily gossip I've witnessed revolves around how much to save and spend for a daughter's wedding or how much a son's new wife is going to be 'worth'. This is especially distasteful when juxtaposed with the obvious and crippling poverty in the country.
I think this definitely makes South Asian countries the worst for women because not one other patriarchal culture (be it East Asia, Middle East or North Africa) would condone men shameless exploitating their wives financially instead of providing for them (it's so bad that thousands of women are killed each year for not giving their husbands enough gold / land / cash). So in my opinion the way in which India differs from Thailand and China (other than these obviously being far more economically and infrastructurally developed) is that it is a lot more unsafe for women (for example, even in the small towns in China and Thailand I regularly saw women in western clothes cycling and riding their scooters around at all hours without worry) and there is dowry rather than bride price, which alters social dynamics very significantly and makes it a much more misogynistic society.
So visiting India is an eye opening experience for me because it teaches me to be thankful for everything I have and to realise how very tough some women have it but it's just about my least favourite/ most uncivilised country in every imaginable way and it is without question the worst politically stable place for a woman to visit, especially a white woman.
Again, dowry practise killed thousands of women directly through dowry deaths and millions of female infants indirectly (not feotus but infant! India is the ONLY country in the world where female infanticide is widely practised and sex ratios keeps declining even after birth- see the recent shameful UN warning about this). I can't believe I even need to explain why this practise is so evil and how widely prevalent it is should be obvious from the disastrous child and infant sex ratios that actually worsen with economic wealth!
I'm simply not going to engage in this debate anymore. Nevertheless, thank you for a civil discussion.
I am not claiming that India is dowry free, but i do see a change coming in. I have lived in India for 27 years, was educated there and married a guy of my own choice. I married outside my community and both are families were happy, no dowry was demanded nor given. This may come off as a on off example to you but for a huge chunk of people i know, have grown up with fortunately had similar experiences. I dervice my optimism from there. India does have a sizeable chunk where the youth is willing to stand up against Dowry. A small change is a good change, to name a few :
Your emphasis that this is evil is completely justifiable and i do not disagree. Female infanticide is ugly and yes unfortunately still prevalent. But i am glad the society as a whole is making changes.
1. Prenatal sex determination is banned in India and the law is fairly strict with those who flout
2. Private schools admission policy allots extra points to families with a girl child
3. Tv, print and social media has numerous ongoing efforts to eradicate anti female mindset.
These steps do make a difference. I appreciate the discussion we had, a 2 way communication can help a lot.
2nd generation Indian Americans are all awesome people. Easy going, friendly, smart and sociable. However, first generation immigrants are total opposite. They are extremely difficult to deal with especially in business, better to just stay away.
Judging by a lot of comments on various forums and websites, it seems to have become fashionable to talk negative about India and Indians in the wake of reports of various social problems the country has (which I'm fully aware of and need to be resolved or addressed), such as rape, poverty, caste system, etc. So much so that the most popular opinions often seem to be ones which have a contemptuous or even hostile view of the country and people. Even though there are some things I don't like about Indian culture (as well as some things I like), I still find such comments disheartening. People seem to make blanket judgments, with others agreeing with them (this can easily be seen through upvotes vs. downvotes on websites such as reddit and Yahoo! News).
To that end, does anyone still have a mostly positive opinion? Also, as this is the Asia forum, how do you view India in comparison to countries such as China, Japan, Thailand, or Pakistan?
And in your experience do you find Indians different in behavior when compared to other ethnicities?
Again, I'm asking this purely out of curiosity and wanted to get this off my chest.
I'm in America and have never been to India, although i'd like to visit. I've been to SE Asia, though.
As for my opinion of Indians? I usually don't think much about it. I've known some Indians here in the USA. Pretty smart people. Of course, I guess that might go without saying. Engineers. Lawyers. Doctors. They somehow managed to get here from India and prosper, so I guess they must be cream of the crop, so to speak. My geometry teacher in prep school was from India. I've also met some influential Indians in my travels. Again, very motivated and successful. One guy I met had a company with 9000 employees. He was semi-retired and traveling around the world.
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