India prides on its ideology of Patriarchy, which is still heavily enforced to this day. Unfortunately, this proves to have consequences for a large number of the population. A result proves to be domestic violence which is influenced by the thought that the woman must obey the man. By definition it is proven to be either emotional or sexual abuse imposed on the victim (The United States Department of Justice). Issues such as the wife not respecting her husband 's family can impose hefty consequences. As a country that surrounds itself with the importance of reputation, many victims are left feeling helpless. Out of this comes the practice of Dowry in which goods are exchanged on the condition of marriage. A seemingly harmless tradition that
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The ideal beliefs being that an Indian man is to marry an Indian woman who will serve him and his family. Alongside this we have the use of social stratification as this practice mainly occurs in lower class families. Again, this leads back to the religious and patriarchal influence on these practices. In 1961 the Dowry Prohibition Act had a maximum sentence of three years for the male offender (Ghosh, 2013, p. 410). The law was then altered to cover all forms of domestic violence yet the fault lay in the fact that these laws were formed on a patriarchal basis. Therefore, even if it looks good in theory in reality that is not the case. Conversely, despite the law changes the statistics grew significantly. In the “National Crime Records Bureau Report of India there was recorded total of 8,618 female homicides related to dowry disputes in 2011" (Banerjee, 2014, p. 34). These reports are simply those that the Police know of. Knowing that there are many reports that have not left a household only show that the law is infact not working at all. Dowry helps lift the burden that lower class communities will have. Traditions are something that can be altered but cannot be broken …show more content…
The Supreme Court stated that most murders were committed inside the home and were framed as suicide (Newman, 1992, 118). Adding to this punishments were often not given and offenders were let go. Simply, from how the system works offenders know that they can keep committing the crime as the Police will do nothing. In comparison to other countries dowry is not a natural practice therefore it is difficult to have an example to follow. There is only so much that women can do to have their voices heard. In a male dominated country their defending actions are often deemed out of the
The ideal beliefs being that an Indian man is to marry an Indian woman who will serve him and his family. Alongside this we have the use of social stratification as this practice mainly occurs in lower class families. Again, this leads back to the religious and patriarchal influence on these practices. In 1961 the Dowry Prohibition Act had a maximum sentence of three years for the male offender (Ghosh, 2013, p. 410). The law was then altered to cover all forms of domestic violence yet the fault lay in the fact that these laws were formed on a patriarchal basis. Therefore, even if it looks good in theory in reality that is not the case. Conversely, despite the law changes the statistics grew significantly. In the “National Crime Records Bureau Report of India there was recorded total of 8,618 female homicides related to dowry disputes in 2011" (Banerjee, 2014, p. 34). These reports are simply those that the Police know of. Knowing that there are many reports that have not left a household only show that the law is infact not working at all. Dowry helps lift the burden that lower class communities will have. Traditions are something that can be altered but cannot be broken …show more content…
The Supreme Court stated that most murders were committed inside the home and were framed as suicide (Newman, 1992, 118). Adding to this punishments were often not given and offenders were let go. Simply, from how the system works offenders know that they can keep committing the crime as the Police will do nothing. In comparison to other countries dowry is not a natural practice therefore it is difficult to have an example to follow. There is only so much that women can do to have their voices heard. In a male dominated country their defending actions are often deemed out of the