Hopes of a happy marriage are often betrayed when demands for money and goods from the groom's family taint the alliance and turn it into a petty transaction.
Extortionate demands for dowry, which continue even well after the wedding is over, lead to the bride's family becoming impoverished; and in many cases the groom does not even intend settling down with his wife.
The fear of being unable to afford a wedding for their daughter has led some families in Bihar to kidnap grooms and force them into marriage. At the same time, movements such as as the Khuddam-e-Millat prove that weddings can be held simply without taking away anything from the significance or enjoyment of the occasion.
A brave young woman decided to stand up to the demands from her fiance's family,and carried out a sting operation using a hidden camera, to expose their greedy demands for money and a car. Today Rani Tripathi is happily married to Pawan,and is proof that one can say No to dowry, without fear.
There are parts of India where the practice of dowry simply does not exist. It is up to us to ensure that a marriage remains what it is -- the beginning of a relationship between two people, and not a material transaction.
Paramjeet was supposed to join her husband in a fortnight but this never happened. Her in-laws began demanding more and more dowry, and began ill-treating her. Finally they told her to leave the house.
While the dowry menace looms over much of India, in the North-East states it is a different story, as the concept of dowry is unheard-of there. Even the bride's clothes are provided by the groom's side
With the help of her brother, Rani made use of hidden cameras to record the groom's side making outrageous demands for dowry, and being vociferous about it too.
The pressure of providing a lavish wedding and meeting the demands of the groom's family have led the families of some girls to take drastic measures. Santosh Kumar of Bihar tells one such story. He was identified as a good prospective husband for Ruby Devi, whose father found a simple way of bypassing the dowry demands -- he kidnapped Santosh Kumar and forced him to marry Ruby Devi.
It has been 14 years. Ruby and Santosh are happy together, and have two children. But this only happened after Santosh was kidnapped from his village, forced to undergo the marriage rites, and locked in a room with his bride. Such forcible marriages are common in Bihar, says Santosh Kumar, and they are known as Pakadwah Byaah.
The solution to the problem of crippling wedding costs is to do away entirely with ostentatious weddings and the practice of dowry. This is what has been done in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra, where weddings are conducted with the utmost simplicity, so much so that there is no wedding feast either. This has come about because of the efforts of a group called the Tanzeem Khuddam-e-Millat.
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