The dowry system is one of the greatest social evils in India.

Day in and day ou t we hear reports of dowry deaths. Many dear daughters of their parents have bee n snatched from them by this demon of dowry.Much of the corruption that we speak of prevailing in our society can be attributed to dowry system.People hoard ill egal wealth because they have to incur heavy dowry expediture at the time of mar riage of their daughters. This evil is eating into the vitals of Indian society and real process stands baulked. drowry system is noy a phenomenon of the present day Indian society only. we hav e inherited it from past. There is mention of rich dowry being given by parents to their daughters at the time of their marriage in our mythologicl stories. The custom was prevalent in forengien countries also in one forn or the other.Seleu cus nicator gave a lot of jewllery,elephants and other things to chandra gupta m aurya in dowry for his daughter's marriage with him. Even in other countries,it is customery on the part of parents to gifts and presents to the newly wedded co uples. Almost in all societies this custom is prevalent. As a matter of fact there is nothing wrong wit h the custom itself. It is a healthy custom if it is kept within proper limits .Cash or presents given to the newly wedded couples help them to start in life w ith ease and comfort. But why should the parents of the girl only bear the whole burden?

We live in our society. It is made up of different castes and sub-castes. There are different traditions and cultures. Some of the traditions are good, but not all of thyem. Dowry system is one of the social evils which is in practice till now. Dowry is the property or money given to the bride to take her husband's hou se when she gets married. This evil system is especially praticed in the terai o f our country. Nowadays dowry is a major factor when someone gets married. The bridegroom 's family proposes the amount of dowry. And if the bride's family agrees it, the marrige program is organized . But the dowry should be given on the day of marr ige ceremory. The bridegroom can deny the marrige ceremony if he does not get th e decided dowry. It is the worst aspect of this system. Bride's parents want their daughter to have a properous life. They wan t to support her economy.They ceranitly love their daughter. But in dowry system , the money and other things are not given to her for her happines; rather they are given to make the bridegroom agree to get married to her. Nowadays, the brid egrooms demand more property from the bride's family. I think that this system should be bannded by law. All the educated girl s and boys should discourage and aviod this system when they get married. The pa rents of the girls should educate their daughters property. If the girls are edu cated, they can find good husbands themselves. At any cost, this system should b e wiped out for a civilized society.

Behind the entire media cacophony over Pooja Chauhan is a real story and a real person. The story is a familiar one. Of women, thousands of them, who are harass ed over dowry or over the gender of the child they birth, particularly if she tu rns out to be a girl, Given the lack of any news about dowry deaths, dowry violence or dowry demands,

one would have thought that the problem had disappeared. Far from it. In fact, i t has become far more entrenched and taken new forms. Dowry is a symptom of a de eper disease that relates to how our society values women The present day dowry system symbolizes the disinheritance of women and the resu lting desperation of parents to push their daughters out of their homes after ma rrying them off I point to inherent flaws in the anti-dowry legislation, and argues that equal i nheritance is the way forward. It seems logical that if there are fewer potential brides, dowries should tend t o become lower, women's status should improve. However, the 'importation' of bri des from poorer states - and sometimes even from Bangladesh - keeps dowry rates in Haryana high, despite alarming levels of female infanticide. Alliances may be primed in heaven or in the matrimonial columns, but the great I ndian dowry custom continues to rule society regardless of reforms and regulatio ns. A strong awareness that marriage is not a retail system will be a step in th e right direction Even if the media does not write about dowry deaths anymore as it did in the lat ter part of the 1970s and early 1980s, we must not fool ourselves into believing that the problem has disappeared, but lets stop doing this to ourselves When will it all end ?