Social Realism in ChanChan - Page 3

Originally posted by: preeti25nair

oyster i want to share my personal experiences . since i m a south indian , we here give lots gold to the bride . i started growing up in the society of dowry at every stage of life as chan chan said ek baar diya to har baar , i personally dont like this give and take , so i was always nervous as how i m going to face this system of marriage , u know in south the grooms family proudly asks for dowry stating various reason as ur gril is not beautiful or black skin tone , or the groom is a engineer or doctor , the reasons goes on and on , thank god mine was a love marriage , and i n my husband never asked for any money or gold , but that was not the case with my younger sister my dad took a loan for fulling their demands ,i voiced against it but it all went to deaf ears , after 3 yrs still now it has not stoped , they ask indierctly like after marriage first diwali , first delivery expenses and on .

i think the society will not change until we try to stand up for urselfs .

Originally posted by: ipkkndlove

Very nice post. Dowry still exists in India and many people give dowry or take dowry in the name of gift. Though I belong to Gujarati community, in our cast there is no system dowry, We don't ask for dowry nor we give dowry. The parents gives whatever is affordable to them to their daughter out of love and groom side also don't ask anything. They accept whatever is given to the bride by their parents and if girl's parents are poor, they even accept girl without anything and even we share the expenses of the marriage. Its not only on girl's side. My sister's in-law didn't ask anything apart from my sister. So as far as my cast is concern we don't have the system of dowry at all. But I have heard about dowry in many other casts such as Marwadi. One of our marwadi neighbor had given so much dowry for their daughter's marriage and when I told them why to give dowry they said if we are giving now for our daughter than we will also receive dowry for our son. I was so shocked at their thought process!!!! I don't intend to offend Marwadi people here. Its just my experience I am sharing.

Originally posted by: Oyster

Thank you for sharing your personal experience Preeti. I was really more interested in personal experiences than what we hear on the news.

It's extremely sad to know that there still exist people who evaluate the girl in such cruel manner. Dammit, if you have any problem with the girls looks, her education, her background, then don't ask for her hand!!! No one can force anyone to have their son married to a certain girl. So their problem is not with the girl per se, it seems to be their tactic of how to usurp wealth from the girl's family.. I don't understand how could such shameless people exist. How could the girl live with so much pain in the house that has caused so much trouble to her parents? I cannot imagine what your younger sister goes through.. Imagine how would a person feel to share her emotions, her feelings, her values, HERSELF with a person who perceives her as a means of income?

Oh yes standing up and resisting is the key to any change. The problem though is that you can't stand up for someone else... like your case in your sister's marriage.. I mean you could refuse to marry if you were the bride but you could only advise your sister. One of my friends had an experience of kind of forced marriage and she swore that she'll never let this happen to her children. I find that very helpful as well.. so for instance you could make sure that this dowry thing never happens when your children marry too. That will be a good start... I know it's not like changing a whole society but you can set an example at least..