Hey
Mr. Pen Demands a Dowry
Every time Mr. Pen mentions his wife, I get extremely agitated. After all this time that we've been dating and he never told me he was married. That bastard! Then I remember he's talking about me, his "wife" while we travel. Silly me.
Benjamin has recently been asking about the dowry. It's customary in India for a woman's family to offer the prospective husband a dowry. I've learned it's at least 1 Lak, which is 100,000 rupees (around $2,380.00), and 1 powem of gold (8 grams). Sometimes it's more -- and the bigger the dowry, the easier it is to marry one's daughter off. I imagine if the young woman is not so pretty or has buck teeth, the dowry would need to be quite high. Considering the salary for poor Indians might be 40 - 80 rupees per day (around $1.00 - $2.00), 1 Lak is an impressive sum.
Our friend from Fort Cochin, Ansar, told us he's helping his sister with her dowry. He works hard, fulfilling his family duty, to help marry her off. Sisters must be a burden for this reason... their brothers sacrificing so that they may have a husband. And if a sister is a burden, she also is a burden as a daughter.
Ansar and Rajeesh told us that families are happier when boys are born -- they earn money for the family and don't require a small fortune to get rid of. Before coming to India, I'd read about the practice of female infanticide. The government had to make the abortion of female fetuses illegal; 'Sex determination' clinics were banned.
I also read about 'dowry burning', where a woman is set to flames because her husband or his family want more dowry money and are willing to kill his wife so he may marry again -- divorce would be much easier, but it's looked down upon. Not that people support the burning of brides, but less than 10 percent of reported cases are pursued through the legal system... and many cases go unreported in the first place. A lot of times the women survive and they end up on the street. In Kolkata, I saw a woman begging for money on the corner of 2 busy streets. She was blinded from severe burns and no longer had a nose.
From my reading, I expected to find countless 'Cinderella stories' in the streets of India -- girl children that were lucky enough to make it into the world, and unlucky enough to be born in India, where they were more of a curse than a blessing. I imagined to see them dressed in rags, trailing behind a family of well dressed boys. I pictured them with birds' nests in their hair and a whisk broom in their hands. I thought maybe I wouldn't even see any girls at all -- perhaps their brothers had locked them in cages back at their house.
But it's not the case. There are plenty of happy, health little girls about... many of them pampered as if they have just arrived in India from the pages of a fairy tale book. They are daddy's girls -- proudly held in his arms, the girl children of well-to-do families. In fact, these toddlers don't even wear shoes as they are constantly held or carried. I've never seen one of them actually walking on her own. She is barefoot, has a twinkling ankle bracelet on each leg and a princess-poofy dress -- so frilly and full of pom poms, lace, and ruffles that it would make a prom queen from the '50s sick. She has a decoration in her hair, gold around her neck and wrists, black khol lining her eyes.
But I digress. Back to that dowry... Benjamin won't settle for less than 3 Laks but promises he won't burn me after he's spent it all. He's a good catch!
Benjamin has recently been asking about the dowry. It's customary in India for a woman's family to offer the prospective husband a dowry. I've learned it's at least 1 Lak, which is 100,000 rupees (around $2,380.00), and 1 powem of gold (8 grams). Sometimes it's more -- and the bigger the dowry, the easier it is to marry one's daughter off. I imagine if the young woman is not so pretty or has buck teeth, the dowry would need to be quite high. Considering the salary for poor Indians might be 40 - 80 rupees per day (around $1.00 - $2.00), 1 Lak is an impressive sum.
Our friend from Fort Cochin, Ansar, told us he's helping his sister with her dowry. He works hard, fulfilling his family duty, to help marry her off. Sisters must be a burden for this reason... their brothers sacrificing so that they may have a husband. And if a sister is a burden, she also is a burden as a daughter.
Ansar and Rajeesh told us that families are happier when boys are born -- they earn money for the family and don't require a small fortune to get rid of. Before coming to India, I'd read about the practice of female infanticide. The government had to make the abortion of female fetuses illegal; 'Sex determination' clinics were banned.
I also read about 'dowry burning', where a woman is set to flames because her husband or his family want more dowry money and are willing to kill his wife so he may marry again -- divorce would be much easier, but it's looked down upon. Not that people support the burning of brides, but less than 10 percent of reported cases are pursued through the legal system... and many cases go unreported in the first place. A lot of times the women survive and they end up on the street. In Kolkata, I saw a woman begging for money on the corner of 2 busy streets. She was blinded from severe burns and no longer had a nose.
From my reading, I expected to find countless 'Cinderella stories' in the streets of India -- girl children that were lucky enough to make it into the world, and unlucky enough to be born in India, where they were more of a curse than a blessing. I imagined to see them dressed in rags, trailing behind a family of well dressed boys. I pictured them with birds' nests in their hair and a whisk broom in their hands. I thought maybe I wouldn't even see any girls at all -- perhaps their brothers had locked them in cages back at their house.
But it's not the case. There are plenty of happy, health little girls about... many of them pampered as if they have just arrived in India from the pages of a fairy tale book. They are daddy's girls -- proudly held in his arms, the girl children of well-to-do families. In fact, these toddlers don't even wear shoes as they are constantly held or carried. I've never seen one of them actually walking on her own. She is barefoot, has a twinkling ankle bracelet on each leg and a princess-poofy dress -- so frilly and full of pom poms, lace, and ruffles that it would make a prom queen from the '50s sick. She has a decoration in her hair, gold around her neck and wrists, black khol lining her eyes.
But I digress. Back to that dowry... Benjamin won't settle for less than 3 Laks but promises he won't burn me after he's spent it all. He's a good catch!
posted by Cheryn at 7:16 PM
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