"Dowry: A social crime"
Principal of an English-medium school, Dhaka
I could not agree more with Rubab Abdullah that 'highly educated persons from respectable families' use pressure on career women as a form of dowry-hunting. In my school, we have had more than one instance of excellent young women teachers earnestly promising us that, after their marriage, they intend to continue teaching at our school and so they sign their contracts for the coming year(s). After marriage, however, they say they are under great pressure from their husband's family to accept a job at a school offering a higher salary and they are gone! -- even though it may be the middle of the term and their classes are upset and the management of the school has to quickly try and find a replacement, and the parents blame the school for changing the teachers and suspect the worst about us!We have decided that, in future, before asking engaged young women to sign a contract, we must ask the fiancés to come in, to try and convey to the young men concerned what a 'contract' means, both in law and honour. Unfortunately, employment law (and indeed customary behaviour) in Bangladesh means that we cannot hold them to their contracts. It is worth a try but I am not sure that it will work, without a massive change of attitude. As your correspondent points out, about dowry, 'This evil custom cannot be abolished until the outlook of society changes' but, as he says, it does involve the middle and upper classes as well as the poor. If the bride is considered, primarily, as a source of financial advantage for her husband's family, and her wishes and happiness over-ridden, then how can this not poison the marriage relationship which is at the heart of the family -- and so of society? It's not doing much good to school life either and sets a bad example to the children....
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