Almost 1 woman dies every hour in India due to dowry-related violence. What is the cause of this problem? Of course, some people are greedy and it will be there in every society. But the real problem is because of patriarchal traditions. Women are assumed to have a secondary role. They are taught to be under control of parents, brothers, husbands, in-laws and in later life, sons. At no time they are considered to have an independent existence. In a marriage, they will leave their parents and go to live with the parents of their husbands. If there is a problem, they are expected to adjust. Even if there is ill-treatment, parents and all others advise them to put up with it. Dowry demands are met in the hope that girls would be treated a little better. This increases the greed and a stage comes when it becomes difficult to meet those demands or to put up with the cruelty. Some manage to break the marriage and some are killed or commit suicide. We have to begin to ask questions. Why should women not be treated at par with men? Why should the girl side bear a major portion of the cost of lavish arrangements at marriage and why they have to be lavish? Why should there be any custom for one party in the marriage to give gifts and other party to receive gifts? Why should the woman always and the man never have to live with the parents-in-law? Why should woman not have the freedom to choose the partner and leave one if the choice was not good? Until and unless these questions are answered by the society, no laws will help and women will continue to be tortured and killed. These very questions Luz Elena tries to raise and answer in her novel Prisoners of Tradition, the Real Story by way of the story of Sudama’s daughters – Kusum, Juhi and Pallavi. Kusum is married to the son of Sudama’s wealthy friend Ghanshyam who professes to seek no dowry but is greedy within. Juhi sees through Ghanshyam’s evil plans but is too young to be taken seriously. All hell is let loose on Kusum on the wedding night itself. On the top of it she conceives a child which is found to be a girl. Pressure is mounted on her to abort the child but she does not want to do so. Help comes from unexpected quarters and also from her sister who becomes a lawyer. But will Kusum survive the monster of dowry? Will she be able to give birth to her daughter? Or will she be another addition to the number of dowry deaths in India?
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 08:23:48 +0000
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