Male victims of dowry - Cornered

This is my second article on “Liberate Men from Dowry”. As obnoxious as it sounds, the word Dowry, has a one sided sentiment attached to it as well, wherein women are considered as victims and men as criminals or more specifically, husbands as criminals and wives as victims. However, it cannot be true always. In fact, men are greater victims of dowry than women. Firstly even before marriage, they are under a psychological and social pressure that they should not demand dowry, secondly the fear of a false dowry case is always there and thirdly, I have already explained it in my previous article, as to how dangerous dowry is for men.

Now in this article we will look at another dangerous aspect of dowry from a man’s angle. Sanjeev Prakash killed his wife, exasperated and frustrated with her constant nagging about his lack of income and her demands for a lavish life style. I completely fail to understand how is this demand of money different from dowry?

The wife is torturing the husband for money, not to run the household but for her lavish lifestyle which is beyond the means of the husband to provide. And the wife is asking the money just because she is married to him, i.e. demand of money – a valuable security – is being made in relation to marriage which is dowry as defined in the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

Now let’s reverse this scenario wherein the husband was demanding money from wife, which was beyond her means to pay and he was demanding it for his own lavish lifestyle. Sounds familiar, like a story overheard? Are we not familiar with such stories about women? Without going into the debate about the truthfulness of either story, the matter of fact, as it stands today is that when there is protection available to a wife against dowry demand, there is none available to a husband, failing which a husband is forced to commit a crime, he should have never committed and lands behind bars.

So he has to go behind bars whether he demands dowry or his wife demands which means the moment the word “Dowry” enters a marriage the man has to go to jail. And they call it a man’s world!!!

And thus in light of the above discussion, the cry repeats itself,

LIBERATE MEN FROM DOWRY.

Damn if they, Damn if they don't

Dowry is a very big problem. No one knows how it started however; the history about it is anti-men in nature. No one knows how accurate it is. But given the societal attitudes, girls mostly marry up; they look men richer, more educated than them. However, all boys do not get equal privileges and only the fortunate ones get the advantage of wooing the good girls. But as only one woman can marry that man, obviously there’s going to be a competition amongst girls to get the ‘best man’.

No wonders why girls and their families should not offer dowry to get the ‘best man’. However there are a lot of self-respecting and dignified men who despise the practice and reject dowries out rightly. And the society, unable to accept a man’s rejection ridicules the man, saying, “He must be having some vice, so he is not accepting dowry.”

And I do not need to say anything if a man accepts a dowry and his wife is not happy with him. The dowry case is always there wherein the girl will always be considered the ‘victim’ even if she and her parents were the perpetrators of dowry exchange.

And the ‘misuse of dowry laws’ not being uncommon, even if he does not demand/accept dowry, a false case is also lying ahead of him.

So for men dowry is like, “Damn if they, Damn if they don’t”.

Hence, LIBERATE MEN FROM DOWRY.