Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
India’s recent debate over dowry deaths echoes the same concerns that were supposed to have been addressed by stricter laws and criminal provisions passed in the early 1980s.
After 33-year-old Twisha Sharma was found dead in her home in Bhopal on May 12, six months into her marriage, a series of “dowry deaths” involving newly-wed brides have been reported from across India.
Sharma’s husband and in-laws claim she died by suicide. But her parents have alleged that she was murdered and that her in-laws and husband subjected her to domestic abuse and kept demanding dowry. Sharma’s husband, lawyer Samarth Singh, and mother-in-law Giribala Singh, a retired judge, were arrested soon after.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, cases of “bride burning” in North India consequent upon alleged dowry demands galvanised into the early women’s movement in India, highlighting violence in the marital home. In some of these incidents, newly-wed brides and young women were doused with kerosene and set on fire.
But now, like before, these concerns are overshadowed by a subject that remains undiscussed: the dominance of marriage in Indian society. Feminist scholar Mary E John describes this as “compulsory marriage”, a force that is almost universal.
It is the idea that only marriage can guarantee social meaning, stability, safety for women and it is the sole acceptable space for reproducing children. The...