> India’s patrilineal traditions dictate that the eldest son care for his parents in old age and inherit property, while the dowries paid to marry off daughters can be expensive. The result is sex-selective abortion and an underinvestment in girls so common it has popularized a Hindi motto: “beti to bojh hoti hai,” meaning, “a daughter is a burden.”
This explanation has always been unsatisfying for me. At least it seems incomplete. The system is obviously unethical, but I don't understand how the economics work here.
If only the eldest son inherits, why are the the following sons valued? Given that the practice creates a surplus of unmarried men, shouldn't unmarried women become an asset instead of a liability? Shouldn't unmarried men be a huge force against the dowry system?
Cultural values define the economics here. The dowry is expected from women which ultimately end up with the groom once the bride leaves to live with the groom and his family.
The bride's side hence considers it a liability since there is a financial cost with no return.
The other sons are valued because they contribute to the work force. These sons will usually live under the same roof in a joint-family system.
> The bride's side hence considers it a liability since there is a financial cost with no return.
Right - so why do they pay dowry on top of that? It would make economic sense for them to accept a bride price to compensate for the investment. Especially when the femicide now has created an increased demand for unmarried women.
Is it just cultural inertia that overrides economics here?
Yup, it's just cultural inertia. You are trying to understand the situation's economics from a capitalist point of view, that the brides are "worth" something, and the investment the parents have put into their upbringing was "value" the bride's family put into the marriage, and they should be paid for that.
However, in the culture of India, the groom's family is doing the bride's family a favor by taking the bride off their hands, and undertaking caring for her for the rest of her life. Thus the bride family pays for this service. Usually the dowry is proportional to things like how undesirable the girl may be, how desirable the guy may be, the difference in social status between the parents, all favoring the guy.
Of course, the family itself thinks more along your lines -- "I have to spend money to raise her and take care of her, and then I have to spend an exorbitant amount more when she gets married as dowry," and thus end up resenting her existence from birth.
It's pretty silly, and is slowly fading away, but cultural inertia in a country as large and riveted in its ways as India is a force to be reckoned with.
Between the rapes, dowries, sexual harassment, and a general sense of misogyny: it must be really unfortunate to be born a female in India. I wonder how much of the blame rests on the deep-rooted cultural practices in the region vs the economic dynamics.
It really is unfortunate. The worst part is that as an Indian male (granted I grew up in the Middle East), I didn't realize my mom and the girls in the country were facing a 10x difficulty multiplier on their lives. And this is normal. Most of our males don't even realize how bad it is, even the educated, cultured, open-minded ones.
Let alone the men, even the women have to accept the misogyny and think it's only right that a woman must know how to cook above all else and be at home, listen to her husband when he curbs her career progression, etc.
I only began to understand when I went away to college. Hearing white people complaining about misogyny, and my first thought was "this is nothing!" and realized how much sadder it was that was what came to mind.
The problem is that a lot of the misogyny is defended by religion even, with women denied entry into temples (and by extension lots of solemn gatherings) if they're on their periods. Apparently because couple of thousand years ago women would make temple toilets messy and that was desecration of sacred grounds. Today my response is just "WTF?" when my mom still observes this when our family goes to a temple anywhere in the world, and doesn't enter.
Blame the british. In pre-colonial India women had extensive rights, including property rights. The dowry is exclusively controlled by her so that she can have economic independence if she needs it.
In post colonial india property rights were taken away from women so that the dowry was transformed from something to help your daughter to a payment to your son in law.
This explanation has always been unsatisfying for me. At least it seems incomplete. The system is obviously unethical, but I don't understand how the economics work here.
If only the eldest son inherits, why are the the following sons valued? Given that the practice creates a surplus of unmarried men, shouldn't unmarried women become an asset instead of a liability? Shouldn't unmarried men be a huge force against the dowry system?