Dowry means money and/or property that, in some societies, a wife or her family must pay to her husband or his family when they get married. To give and take dowry is now a common practice in our society irrespective of religion. Young men and their parents claim dowry from young women and their parents. The amount of dowry is demanded on the basis of bridegroom's position. The position includes his education, income and property. Monetary value of a young man is determined at the time of his marriage.

The custom of dowry has been in vogue since long. Emperors and kings used to offer portion of their empire or kingdom and valuable assets as dowry to bridegrooms while giving their daughters in marriage. Gradually the common people began to follow this.

In Bangladesh, there are three categories in society from the financial point of view: a) lower class, b) middle class, c) upper class.

In lower class society, dowry is a common phenomenon. The people mostly are poverty ridden and live in rural areas. They have at best a small plot of land for living or are landless. They are day labourers and live from hand to mouth. The young people of this society at their youth are engaged in the bondage of marriage. They need some money to meet expenditure in this connection. Finding no way, the young men or their parents adopt unfair practice of collecting dowry in form of cash, ornaments and other articles. The poor parents of a bride cannot arrange those things easily.

The people of middle class society generally try to establish some sort of social justice and maintain a balance among themselves. They speak of morality, religion and good deeds. They act against social diseases like dowry, early marriage, divorce, discriminations, moral degradation, drug abuse and any illegitimacy. They certainly work for salvation of the society from the curse of dowry but their attempt often turns abortive because they are not always united. The fact is that many of them at the end also agree to dowry only for the benefit of marriage of their daughters/sisters.

Upper class society welcomes dowry because the members appear ready to reward their bridegrooms. They have the ability and don't mind the amount. There often is a competition among rich people "who may be the highest in paying dowry!"

Dowry is one kind of poison which is every day spoiling our society. This illegal transaction is enmity in place of good relationship. Giving and taking of dowry creates an artificial friendship for a moment but in the long run it breaks down. Dowry is hampering normal life without any good effect. But bad effects of dowry are so many:

a. Dowry causes violence against young women irrespective of caste, creed and religion.

b. Dowry makes innocent young women victims of physical torture, murder acid attack and other violences.

c. Greed for dowry makes a man brute which is most harmful for a smooth family and social life.

d. Dowry turns the poor poorer.

e. Dowry gives birth to dishonesty, inhumanity, enmity and discrimination among young people.

f. Dowry is an obstacle to fair conjugal life.

g. Dowry demolishes morality of new generation.

h. Dowry is the source of discord and misery.

To abolish the system of dowry the government has introduced some programmes. The first one is motivation.

The second one is Dowry Prevention Law. Government passed this law in 1980 and amended it in 2003. According to this law, to give and take dowry is a punishable offence. Under this law, a person involved in transaction of dowry shall be given punishment of one year's imprisonment or fine of Tk. 5000/- (five thousand) or both.

Government has formulated National Youth Policy. In this policy responsibilities of youth have been defined. Their two important responsibilities are "to have respect on national unity, social solidarity, general consensus, tolerance and law and order" and "to play pivotal role in creating a wealthy society free from terrorism, social injustice, exploitation, corruption and crime."

But, still our society is too weak to root out the scourge. To fight the well rooted dowry system the following proposals are made specially for the youth to consider.

Moral education for young people: This can teach young people how to treat life and what good and bad principles are. It can also teach both parents and youths that men and women are equal and one should respect another. Moral education can keep young people away from the curse of dowry. It gives us a good lesson that marriage is not buying and selling of young men and women. Marriage is a lifelong bondage of two persons and dowry is irrelevant to this bondage.

Empowerment of young women: For empowerment of young women, their 50 percent participation in education, employment, social services, politics, and all other productive activities must be ensured. This will make the young women self-reliant and their self-reliance will work as one of the factors in declining the influence of dowry. For young women special programme on education, training, and other supports is most needed. Social security for them is a must.

Capital punishment: For eradication of dowry, government has fixed punishment for persons concerned. Punishment should be higher. For threat of capital punishment young people and their parents shall be too hesitant to give and take dowry.

After all dowry is a man-made custom, so man can drive it out from his life. We all should desire dowry free society with our young people showing the way.

Ashit Kumar Sutradhar is a Deputy Project Director of the Directorate of Youth Development.