Hindu weddings are perceived, especially in the West, as beautiful, colorful and exotic ceremonies, linking a man and a woman forever, but behind these ceremonies are complex and important rituals. These rituals reflect the significance of marriage in Hinduism, as the joining of two individuals’ dharma, kama and moksha and the union of two families. The institution of arranged marriages is often criticized in the Western world as being choiceless, and leads to wonder whether society is going through changing times, leading towards more love-based marriages, with the onset of dating culture in India.
Nowadays, India is the second most populous country in the world and by 2050 this country-continent should overtake the Chinese giant and to be …show more content…
When the family of the bride can not meet this demand, her in-laws can then go after the bride and burn her alive or poisoned her. These crimes are not only rare exceptions committed by illiterate or families in remote villages and don’t seem to decrease with time. In fact, Elisabeth Bumiller states in May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India that, the government released numbers showing that the cases of registered dowry deaths in India increased from 999 in 1985 to 1,786 in 1987. These numbers are “higher than those for deaths caused by terrorist activity in Punjab, which is considered the most serious threat to Indian national unity” (Bumiller 134). These figures represent only a part of reality; as these crimes are committed within the family, there are no witnesses, and the family presents them as suicides or accidents. It therefore is exceedingly difficult for the police to prove the guilt of the murderers, usually in-laws, who most often get away with the crim. Several women 's groups in India are actively campaigning against such abuse by making public the names of the culprits when these families manage to slip through the fingers of
Nowadays, India is the second most populous country in the world and by 2050 this country-continent should overtake the Chinese giant and to be …show more content…
When the family of the bride can not meet this demand, her in-laws can then go after the bride and burn her alive or poisoned her. These crimes are not only rare exceptions committed by illiterate or families in remote villages and don’t seem to decrease with time. In fact, Elisabeth Bumiller states in May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India that, the government released numbers showing that the cases of registered dowry deaths in India increased from 999 in 1985 to 1,786 in 1987. These numbers are “higher than those for deaths caused by terrorist activity in Punjab, which is considered the most serious threat to Indian national unity” (Bumiller 134). These figures represent only a part of reality; as these crimes are committed within the family, there are no witnesses, and the family presents them as suicides or accidents. It therefore is exceedingly difficult for the police to prove the guilt of the murderers, usually in-laws, who most often get away with the crim. Several women 's groups in India are actively campaigning against such abuse by making public the names of the culprits when these families manage to slip through the fingers of