When I was younger, I heard innumerable dowry harassment cases which led to physical and mental trauma of women; newspapers, movies and later news channels were on forefront on exposing such inhuman cases; the media tried its best to create awareness and bring about some common sense among the educated and exposed youth and families.
Exposure to such torture cases begot a kind of intense despise and contempt for those who even think about dowry. And a direct consequence being our family never brought the topic in both my sister's marriage and my marriage and I feel proud that my parents were pioneers of the trend among our extended families, though I don't see it as any great achievement enough to proclaim. We all believe that's a social and human way of thinking !
I always believe anti-dowry and domestic violence laws are boons against such mistreatment against married women because of their support to women and strict punishment against grooms / husbands and their families. Incidentally I didn't come across any dowry harassment cases among my known circles till date (to my delight), but in the last few years I have been witnessing different kind of situations; those of false allegations, misuse of laws. Unfortunately most of the victims happened to be my very close people and I've seen (been seeing) the trauma they are undergoing. While I'm completely in favor of stringent implementation of these laws, I wonder if there is any way to check abuse of the same. An account of few cases where the laws were abused:
Case 1: The simplest of cases was slapping an anti-dowry case on a guy when he asked girl's parents if they could treat their daughter equally with her male siblings in terms of rights and assets especially when all responsibilities and duties were shared equally among sons and daughter (sic). He failed to understand that the demand was called "dowry". He claimed he never demanded dowry but was just being logical by helping his wife avail her rights (:p). However after some "negotiations" with local police, he was let go and the couple lived happily thereafter (!!!)
Case 2: Another situation was one of my friends who was not clearly happy right from the next day of his marriage; he shared his grief with few of his friends (including me) that the girl had a bad break-up before marriage and could not come to terms and hence had been aloof from this guy since their marriage.
I came to Canada and kinda lost touch with him. When I pinged him online one fine day to ask how was his married life, he told me he just came out of 12 month police remand and under-trial. I was shocked to know from him that his newly wed wife committed suicide because her parents forced her into the marriage; broken and depressed, she took the extreme step and her parents wasted no time to slap a dowry harassment case on this guy and his family. Reportedly, all of them had to be in jail, suffer atrocities which are usually reserved for murderers.
I was so moved by the whole narration that I could hardly speak to him. Eventually he was acquitted by court for lack of evidence but he still faces the social stigma, lost his livelihood, forced to relocate to a different and alien place to hide himself from the society. Again, if he had really harassed his wife to death, he deserved this treatment, but what if he didn't ? Who can compensate the physical, mental trauma he and his family faced ?
Case 3: My friend got married few years back and the couple were happy [sic]. But eventually the couple underwent some minor domestic arguments like any other couple and the girl moved into her parents' place. Her parents immediately filed an anti dowry case on this guy and his family (despite their living away from parents and no chance of his family to interact much with his wife).
The whole household underwent depression, but somehow implored the girl to get back to the family with a promise that no one will ever dare question her again. Fortunately, everything went on well after that incident and now they are a happy couple, thankfully !
Case 4: A distant relative got married recently but after marriage the couple faced severe incompatibilities and realized they couldn't live together. They made it a point not to get physically, mentally, emotionally involved. Practically they lived in different cities. Soon both families got involved, conducted many counseling sessions and unanimously decided to annul the marriage through legal means (which means the marriage was never considered to be happened).
Out of the blue, the bride's family demanded groom's family to pay a hefty sum worth 5 years of groom's household income, failing which they had to face anti dowry, domestic violence and many other cases which could have put the family behind bars for a long time. The poor family had to mortgage their only residence in addition to shelling out their lifelong savings.The girl is now happy; bought a nice car, sponsored her brother's foreign education et al.
Case 5: The case which I got conversant with recently. My friend of over 8 years married a long standing girlfriend some 6 years back through a registered marriage in Europe (against her family's wish). 3 years later when they returned to India to seek elders' blessings, the girl's parents house arrested her and filed dowry harassment and domestic violence case against him who has been fighting till now. He lost his peace of mind, senses, career, family, life and is also facing a threat to his life (sic).
Bottom Line: Now among all these cases, if boys were lying to garner sympathy and if they had really troubled their respective spouses, then they very much deserve all the trauma they were suffering. But the million dollar question is what if they are innocent ?
A police case can be filed by anybody on anybody due to different reasons. Genuine suffering could only be one of those reasons, but there can be hidden agenda, blackmail and arm twisting tactics, paranoia, schizophrenia, attitude issues, mental imbalance or innumerable other reasons. Its common sense that accusation can't be tantamount to conviction. But fake allegations and abuse of such laws can cost livelihood, peace of mind for many youth.
Agonizing factor in such cases is that public sympathy, police, laws, society always take girls' side, regardless. Good or bad, naive or conspirative, honest or fake - these qualities are not exclusive to any gender. If dowry abuse is a sin, so is fake victimization of anti-dowry laws. No two ways about it.
According to stats, its revealed that less than 10% of cases were genuine. It could only means two things:
PS: Earlier when I wrote an article about female (in)equality in society (Read: Do women deserve special attention ?), some male chauvinists ridiculed me for having feminist views. I didn't care ! Now if ultra feminists get hurt reading this post, I don't care either !
Exposure to such torture cases begot a kind of intense despise and contempt for those who even think about dowry. And a direct consequence being our family never brought the topic in both my sister's marriage and my marriage and I feel proud that my parents were pioneers of the trend among our extended families, though I don't see it as any great achievement enough to proclaim. We all believe that's a social and human way of thinking !
I always believe anti-dowry and domestic violence laws are boons against such mistreatment against married women because of their support to women and strict punishment against grooms / husbands and their families. Incidentally I didn't come across any dowry harassment cases among my known circles till date (to my delight), but in the last few years I have been witnessing different kind of situations; those of false allegations, misuse of laws. Unfortunately most of the victims happened to be my very close people and I've seen (been seeing) the trauma they are undergoing. While I'm completely in favor of stringent implementation of these laws, I wonder if there is any way to check abuse of the same. An account of few cases where the laws were abused:
Case 1: The simplest of cases was slapping an anti-dowry case on a guy when he asked girl's parents if they could treat their daughter equally with her male siblings in terms of rights and assets especially when all responsibilities and duties were shared equally among sons and daughter (sic). He failed to understand that the demand was called "dowry". He claimed he never demanded dowry but was just being logical by helping his wife avail her rights (:p). However after some "negotiations" with local police, he was let go and the couple lived happily thereafter (!!!)
Case 2: Another situation was one of my friends who was not clearly happy right from the next day of his marriage; he shared his grief with few of his friends (including me) that the girl had a bad break-up before marriage and could not come to terms and hence had been aloof from this guy since their marriage.
I came to Canada and kinda lost touch with him. When I pinged him online one fine day to ask how was his married life, he told me he just came out of 12 month police remand and under-trial. I was shocked to know from him that his newly wed wife committed suicide because her parents forced her into the marriage; broken and depressed, she took the extreme step and her parents wasted no time to slap a dowry harassment case on this guy and his family. Reportedly, all of them had to be in jail, suffer atrocities which are usually reserved for murderers.
I was so moved by the whole narration that I could hardly speak to him. Eventually he was acquitted by court for lack of evidence but he still faces the social stigma, lost his livelihood, forced to relocate to a different and alien place to hide himself from the society. Again, if he had really harassed his wife to death, he deserved this treatment, but what if he didn't ? Who can compensate the physical, mental trauma he and his family faced ?
Case 3: My friend got married few years back and the couple were happy [sic]. But eventually the couple underwent some minor domestic arguments like any other couple and the girl moved into her parents' place. Her parents immediately filed an anti dowry case on this guy and his family (despite their living away from parents and no chance of his family to interact much with his wife).
The whole household underwent depression, but somehow implored the girl to get back to the family with a promise that no one will ever dare question her again. Fortunately, everything went on well after that incident and now they are a happy couple, thankfully !
Case 4: A distant relative got married recently but after marriage the couple faced severe incompatibilities and realized they couldn't live together. They made it a point not to get physically, mentally, emotionally involved. Practically they lived in different cities. Soon both families got involved, conducted many counseling sessions and unanimously decided to annul the marriage through legal means (which means the marriage was never considered to be happened).
Out of the blue, the bride's family demanded groom's family to pay a hefty sum worth 5 years of groom's household income, failing which they had to face anti dowry, domestic violence and many other cases which could have put the family behind bars for a long time. The poor family had to mortgage their only residence in addition to shelling out their lifelong savings.The girl is now happy; bought a nice car, sponsored her brother's foreign education et al.
Case 5: The case which I got conversant with recently. My friend of over 8 years married a long standing girlfriend some 6 years back through a registered marriage in Europe (against her family's wish). 3 years later when they returned to India to seek elders' blessings, the girl's parents house arrested her and filed dowry harassment and domestic violence case against him who has been fighting till now. He lost his peace of mind, senses, career, family, life and is also facing a threat to his life (sic).
Bottom Line: Now among all these cases, if boys were lying to garner sympathy and if they had really troubled their respective spouses, then they very much deserve all the trauma they were suffering. But the million dollar question is what if they are innocent ?
A police case can be filed by anybody on anybody due to different reasons. Genuine suffering could only be one of those reasons, but there can be hidden agenda, blackmail and arm twisting tactics, paranoia, schizophrenia, attitude issues, mental imbalance or innumerable other reasons. Its common sense that accusation can't be tantamount to conviction. But fake allegations and abuse of such laws can cost livelihood, peace of mind for many youth.
Agonizing factor in such cases is that public sympathy, police, laws, society always take girls' side, regardless. Good or bad, naive or conspirative, honest or fake - these qualities are not exclusive to any gender. If dowry abuse is a sin, so is fake victimization of anti-dowry laws. No two ways about it.
According to stats, its revealed that less than 10% of cases were genuine. It could only means two things:
- Most of the women who still face dowry harassment, domestic violence are not resorting to police and law due to fear of society and family. So the social evil is still there.
- Most of the women who file cases are fake. Thus creating another social evil called false victimization.
PS: Earlier when I wrote an article about female (in)equality in society (Read: Do women deserve special attention ?), some male chauvinists ridiculed me for having feminist views. I didn't care ! Now if ultra feminists get hurt reading this post, I don't care either !
4 comments:
This is one of the few articles on the internet that speaks from a man's perspective. Its a refreshing new opinion and made a good read!
Hasita
Thanks Hasita :)
mate today only i came to know of a case where a couple had love marriage, man very successful, only son, several properties, no habits. girl a successful dental doctor. married for seven years and no kids as the woman fears her body will get disfigured. boy doesnt have parents and there is no interference from anyone in the couple's life. the boy occassionally goes on official tours. he loves his wife too much. suddenly the boy discovers that the woman is sleeping around when he is on tours. she brings those men in her house and sleeps on the same bed with them on which she sleeps with her husband. she bathes with them in the same bathroom in which she bathes with her husband. on finding this the husband looses his mental balance. he beats his wife for a few minutes and then gets the divorce papers and gives them to his wife to sign within the next 48 hrs and telling her to move out of his life quietly. he assures her that nobody will come to know as to what happened. she refuses. goes to her parents house, they file a false police complaint against the boy , his sisters, their husbands (none of them ever had any interaction with the girl), forcibly occupy the property of the boy worth crores and still the girl says that she will sleep with other men...so what it is her body........and police and lawyers say the boy cannot do anything as the law is on woman's side...............what do you call this.
Kill The GIRL(SORRY BITCH!!)..
Post a Comment