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.