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Abstract
Dowry payments from the family of the bride to that of the groom were rarely encountered in Kerala during the early twentieth century, but now are almost universal. Based on an examination of historical documents, including legislative debates, court cases, and reports, the way dowry was explained in the past is compared with the results of 200 contemporary interviews to determine its current rationale. Nowadays, making an obligatory payment for the maintenance of a wife, adherence to a social norm, and guaranteeing a woman's good treatment have displaced earlier arguments related to inheritance, status in the social hierarchy, or a woman's ability to provide for herself. Although several blurred traditions have been cited to account for dowries, they seem to have flourished in times of social inequity and uncertainty: the 1930s, 1970s, and 1990s. The emphasis on patriarchal nuclear families has created a mentality that a woman must pay for the privilege of being married and living securely.
Notes
1 M.N. Srinivas, Village, Caste, Gender and Method: Essays in Indian Social Anthropology (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 160; and S.J. Puthenkalam, Marriage and the Family in Kerala with Special Reference to Matrilineal Castes (Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 1977), p. 93.
2 Puthenkalam, Marriage and the Family in Kerala, p. 104.
3 Jack Goody and S.J. Tambiah, Bridewealth and Dowry (London: Cambridge University Press, 1963), p. 64; and S.J. Tambiah, ‘Bridewealth and Dowry Revisited: The Position of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa and North India’, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 30, no. 4 (1989), pp. 413–35.
4 Ester Boserup, Women's Role in Economic Development (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970); Barbara D. Miller, The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981); Indira Rajaraman, ‘Economics of Bride-Price and Dowry’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 18, no. 8 (3 Sept. 1983), pp. 275–80; and Government of India, Towards Equality: Report of the National Committee on the Status of Women in India (New Delhi: Department of Social Welfare, 1974), pp. 69–71.
5 Samita Sen, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
6 Goody and Tambiah, Bridewealth and Dowry, p. 64.
7 Aarti Luthra, ‘Dowry among Urban Poor: Perception and Practice’, in Social Action, Vol. 33, no. 2 (1983), pp. 94–217; R.B. Sambrani and S. Sambrani, ‘Economics of Bride-Price and Dowry’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 18, no. 15 (9 April 1983), pp. 601–3; M.N. Srinivas, ‘Some Reflections on Dowry’, in Srimati Basu (ed.), Dowry and Inheritance (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2005), pp. 3–26; Marion den Uyl, Invisible Barriers: Gender, Caste, and Kinship in a Southern Indian Village (Utrecht: International Books, 1995); Klas van de Veen, I Give Thee My Daughter: A Study of Marriage and Hierarchy among Anival Brahmins of South Gujarat (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1972); and Veena Das, ‘Marriage among Hindus’, in Devaki Jain (ed.), Indian Women (New Delhi: Government of India, 1975) pp. 76–86.
8 Siwan Anderson, ‘Why Dowry Payments Declined with Modernization in Europe but are Rising in India’, in Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 111, no. 2 (2003), pp. 269–310; and Sharada Srinivasan, ‘Daughters or Dowries? The Changing Nature of Dowry Practices in South India’, in World Development, Vol. 33, no. 4 (2005), pp. 593–615.
9 Ranjala Sheel, The Political Economy of Dowry: Institutionalization and Expansion in North India (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999).
10 Karin Kapadia, Siva and Her Sisters: Gender, Caste, and Class in Rural South India (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 11, 46.
11 Ursula Sharma, ‘Dowry in North India: Its Consequences for Women’, in Patricia Uberoi (ed.), Family, Kinship, and Marriage in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 354–5.
12 Vijayendra Rao, ‘The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry in Rural India’, in Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 101, no. 4 (1993), pp. 666–77; M.S. Billig, ‘The Marriage Squeeze on High-Caste Rajasthani Women’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 50, no. 2 (1992), pp. 341–60; J.C. Caldwell, P.H. Reddy, and P. Caldwell, ‘The Causes of Marriage Change in South India’, in Population Studies, Vol. 37, no. 3 (1983), pp. 343–61; and M. Botticini and A. Siow, ‘Why Dowries?’, in American Economic Review, Vol. 93, no. 4 (1983), pp. 1385–98.
13 Patricia Jeffery, ‘Daughter Aversion, Dowry, and Demographic Change’, SASNET Conference for Young Scholars, Lund University, Sweden, 16 Aug. 2011.
14 Srinivasan, ‘Daughters or Dowries?’, pp. 593–615; and Rajni Palriwala, ‘Reaffirming the Anti-Dowry Struggle’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 24, no. 17 (29 April 1989), pp. 942–4.
15 Maya Unnithan-Kumar, Identity, Gender, and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997); and Shalini Randeria and Leela Visaria, ‘Sociology of Bride-Price and Dowry’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 19, no. 15 (14 April 1984), pp. 648–52.
16 Srinivasan, ‘Daughters or Dowries?’, pp. 593–615.
17 Srinivas, Village, Caste, Gender and Method, p. 162.
18 Ibid., p. 161.
19 Kathleen Gough, ‘“Nayar: Central Kerala”, “Nayar: North Kerala”, “Tiyyar: North Kerala”, “Mappilla: North Kerala”’, in David Schneider and Kathleen Gough (eds), Matrilineal Kinship (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1961), pp. 298–444.
20 T.K. Velu Pillai, The Travancore State Manual, Vol. I (Trivandrum: Government of Travancore, 1940), pp. 386, 421–2.
21 Robin Jeffrey, Politics, Women, and Well-Being: How Kerala Became ‘A Model’ (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 34–54; K. Saradamoni, Matriliny Transformed (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999); and G. Arunima, There Comes Papa: Colonialism and the Transformation of Matriliny in Kerala, Malabar c. 1850–1940 (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2003).
22 den Uyl, Invisible Barriers, p. 89; Jeffrey, Politics, Women, and Well-Being, p. 35; Anna Lindberg, Experience and Identity: A Historical Account of Class, Caste, and Gender among the Cashew Workers of Kerala, 1930–2000 (Lund: University of Lund, 2001), pp. 313–4; and Anna Lindberg, ‘Islamisation, Modernisation, or Globalisation? Changed Gender Relations among South Indian Muslims’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 32, no. 1 (April 2009), pp. 86–109.
23 V. Nagam Aiya, The Travancore State Manual, Vol. II (Trivandrum: Travancore Government Press, 1906), pp. 352–60.
24 Census of India 1931, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 171–85; Puthenkalam, Marriage and the Family in Kerala, pp. 105 ff; K.C. Alexander, Social Mobility in Kerala (Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1968), p. 130; L.A.K. Iyer, The Travancore Tribes and Castes, Vol. II (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1939), pp. 151 ff; and Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. II (Madras: Government Press, 1909), p. 125.
25 Jeffrey, Politics, Women, and Well-Being, pp. 41–9.
26 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, pp. 67, 125; and Iyer, Travancore Tribes and Castes, p. 187.
27 den Uyl, Invisible Barriers, p. 208; and Census of India 1961, Vol. VII, Kerala, Part VI C, Village Survey Monographs, Ernakulam and Kottayam Districts (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1966), p. 101.
28 Alexander, Social Mobility, p. 141.
29 Cf. Janaki Nair, ‘Prohibited Marriage, State Protection, and the Child Wife’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 29, nos. 1–2 (1995), pp. 157–86.
30 Partha Chatterjee, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Questions’, in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989), pp. 233–53.
31 E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Kerala Society and Politics: An Historical Survey (New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1984), p. 104.
32 Saradamoni, Matriliny Transformed, p. 27; and Robin Jeffrey, The Decline of Nair Dominance (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976), pp. 221–40.
33 Dagmar Engels, Beyond Purdah? Women in Bengal, 1890–1930 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Veena Oldenburg, Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
34 Rochona Majumdar, ‘Understanding Marriage Dowry’, in History Compass, Vol. 2, no. 1 (2004), pp. 1–9; and Rochona Majumdar, Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009).
35 Proceedings of the Travancore Sri Mulam Assembly (hereafter TSMA), Vol. VX, nos. 1–14 (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1942), and Vol. XV, pp. 456–71.
36 Madhu Kishwar, ‘Rethinking Dowry Boycott’, in Manushi, Vol. 48 (Sept.–Oct. 1988), pp. 10–3; and Oldenburg, Dowry Murder, p. 225.
37 TSMA, Vol. XV, p. 458.
38 Ibid., p. 468.
39 Louise Ouwerkerk, No Elephants for the Maharaja: Social and Political Change in the Princely State of Travancore (1921–47) (New Delhi: Manohar, 1994).
40 Government of India, Towards Equality, pp. 75–6; and AIDWA, Expanding Dimensions of Dowry (New Delhi: All India Democratic Women's Association, 2003).
41 Srimati Basu, ‘Legacies of the Dowry Prohibition Act in India’, in Tamsin Bradley, Emma Tomalin, and Mangala Subramaniam (eds), Dowry: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice (London: Zed Books, 2009), pp. 181–7.
42 Joan P. Mencher, ‘Namboodiri Brahmins: An Analysis of a Traditional Elite in Kerala’, in Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. I, no. 1 (1966), pp. 183–96.
43 A. Sreedhara Menon, Kerala and Freedom Struggle (Kottayam: D.C. Books, 1997), p. 61; Namboodiripad, Kerala Society and Politics, pp. 102–3; P.K.K. Menon, The History of Freedom Movement in Kerala, Vol. II (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1972), pp. 472–4; and J. Devika, En-Gendering Individuals: The Language of Re-Forming in Early Twentieth Century Keralam (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007), pp. 124–9.
44 Joan P. Mencher, ‘Namboodiri Brahmans of Kerala: A Unique Culture Now Faces Drastic Change’, in Natural History, Vol. 75 (1966), pp. 14–21; Joan Mencher and Helen Goldberg, ‘Kinship and Marriage Regulations among the Namboodiri Brahmans of Kerala’, in Man, n.s., Vol. 2, no. 1 (1967), pp. 87–106; and Devika, En-Gendering Individuals, pp. 111–71.
45 Praveena Kodoth, ‘Courting Legitimacy or Delegitimizing Custom? Sexuality, Sambandham, and Marriage Reform in Late Nineteenth Century Malabar’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 35, no. 2 (2001), p. 350.
46 Travancore Legislative Council Proceedings (hereafter TLCP), Vol. X (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1927), pp. 629, 651, 663.
47 TLCP, Vol. X (1927), pp. 629–747; TLCP, Vol. XVI (1932), pp. 176–218; and TLCP, Vol. XVII (1933), pp. 1144–214.
48 Menon, The History of Freedom Movement in Kerala, Vol. II, p. 472.
49 TSMA, Vol. VX, p. 463. Although not discussing Kerala, Srinivas has asserted that all castes in South India, including Brahmans, paid bride-price in the nineteenth century. See Srinivas, Village, Caste, Gender and Method, p. 167.
50 Aiya, The Travancore State Manual, Vol. II, p. 259; and William Logan, Malabar Manual, Vol. I (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1887), p. 128.
51 ‘Proclamation in the name of Rani Parvaty Bai’, dated 1822–23, in Kizhakkemadattil Govindan Nair and B. Pushpa, Chatritrattinte Aedukal (988–1022) (Thiruvananthapuram: 1992), pp. 181–2, quoted in Devika, En-Gendering Individuals, pp. 122–3.
52 Census of India 1901, Vol. XXVI, Travancore, Part I–Report (Trivandrum: Malabar Mail Press, 1903), pp. 305–6.
53 Census of India 1911, Vol. XXIII, Travancore, Report (Trivandrum: Ananda Press, 1912), p. 151.
54 Devika, En-Gendering Individuals, p. 122.
55 Travancore Law Reports (hereafter TLR), Vol. XXV (Trivandrum: Western Star Press, 1911), pp. 196–222.
56 Ibid., p. 201.
57 Ibid., p. 221.
58 Menon, The History of Freedom Movement in Kerala, Vol. II, p. 472.
59 TLCP, Vol. X, pp. 636, 639, 640, 722, 735; and Vol. XVII, pp. 1204–6.
60 Travancore Regulations and Proclamations, Vol. VII (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1934), p. 64.
61 TLCP, Vol. X, p. 722.
62 Archana Parashar, Women and Family Law Reform in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1992), pp. 128–9; and Monmayee Basu, Hindu Women and Marriage Law: From Sacrament to Contract (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 93.
63 Matrilineal Hindus in Malabar, who traditionally held property rights, were one such example. See Parashar, Women and Family Law, p. 107.
64 Census of India 1931, Vol. XXVIII, Travancore, Part I–Report (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1932), pp. 337–41; Report of the Christian Committee, Travancore (Trivandrum: Travancore Government Press, 1912), p. 7; Susan Viswanathan, The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief, and Ritual among the Yakoba (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 13–68; and K.C. Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala: Demographic and Socio-Economic Transition in the Twentieth Century (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2006), pp. 41–88.
65 An exception is the small matrilineal community of Neyyattinkara, south of Trivandrum. See Report of the Christian Committee, p. 5; and Saradamoni, Matriliny Transformed, p. 59.
66 Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala.
67 Report of the Christian Committee, p. 3.
68 Ibid., p. 23.
69 Ibid., pp. 22–3.
70 Ibid., p. 23.
71 Ibid., p. 16.
72 Ibid., p. 27.
73 Parashar, Women and Family Law, pp. 190–1.
74 Praveena Kodoth, ‘Gender, Community, and Identity in Christian Property Law Reform: The Case of Early Twentieth Century Tiruvitamkoor’, in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 3, no. 3 (2002), pp. 383–93.
75 TLCP, Vol. XX, p. 810.
76 Parashar, Women and Family Law, p. 190.
77 Srimati Basu, ‘Haklenewali: Indian Women's Negotiations of Discourses of Inheritance’, in Srimati Basu (ed.), Dowry and Inheritance (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2005), pp. 151–70.
78 Victor D’Souza, ‘Kinship Organization and Marriage Customs among the Moplahs on the South-West Coast of India’, in I. Ahmad (ed.), Family, Kinship, and Marriage among Muslims in India (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976), pp. 148–9, 152–3.
79 K.S. Singh (ed.), People of India: Kerala, Vol. XXVII, Part II (New Delhi: Affiliated East-West Press, 2002), pp. 1013–31; and Paras Diwan, Muslim Law in Modern India (Allahabad: Law Agency, 2001), p. 60.
80 Saradamoni, Matriliny Transformed; D. Renjini, Nayar Women Today: Disintegration of Matrilineal System and the Status of Nayar Women in Kerala (New Delhi: Classical Publications, 2000); and Madhavan Kutty, The Village before Time (New Delhi: IndiaInk, 2000).
81 Marjatta Parpola, Kerala Brahmins in Transition: A Study of a Namputiri Family (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2000), p. 206.
82 Lindberg, Experience and Identity, pp. 294–300; and Anna Lindberg, Modernization and Effeminization in India: Kerala Cashew Workers since 1930 (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2005), pp. 147–50.
83 Rajaraman, ‘Economics of Bride-Price’, pp. 275–80; and Randeria and Visaria, ‘Sociology of Bride-Price’, pp. 648–52.
84 Boserup, Women's Role; and Sen, Women and Labour.
85 Lindberg, Experience and Identity, pp. 338–40; and Lindberg, Modernization and Effeminization, pp. 167–8.
86 Rajaraman, ‘Economics of Bride-Price’, pp. 275–80.
87 Sen, Women and Labour.
88 Lindberg, Experience and Identity, pp. 338–40; and Lindberg, Modernization and Effeminization, pp. 167–8.
89 D’Souza, ‘Kinship Organization’, pp. 148–9.
90 Santi Rozario, ‘Dowry in Rural Bangladesh: An Intractable Problem?’, in Tamsin Bradley, Emma Tomalin, and Mangala Subramaniam (eds), Dowry: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice (London: Zed Books, 2009), pp. 29–58.
91 Caroline Osella and Filippo Osella, ‘Migration, Money, and Masculinity in Kerala’, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 6, no. 1 (2000), pp. 117–33.
92 Praveena Kodoth, ‘Gender, Caste, and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry’, in Development and Change, Vol. 39, no. 2 (2008), p. 266.
93 Ibid., pp. 262–83.
94 Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell, ‘Causes of Marriage Change’, pp. 343–61.
95 Srinivasan, ‘Daughters or Dowries?’, pp. 593–615; and Sonia Dalmia and Pareena G. Lawrence, ‘The Institution of Dowry in India: Why it Continues to Prevail’, in Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 38, no. 2 (2005), pp. 71–93.
96 Basu, ‘Haklenewali’, pp. 151–70.
97 See also Sharma, ‘Dowry in North India’, pp. 346–56; and Werner Menski, ‘Dowry: A Survey of the Issues and the Literature’, in Werner Menski (ed.), South Asians and the Dowry Problem (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 1998), pp. 55, 60.
98 Deniz Kandyoti, ‘Bargaining with Patriarchy’, in Gender and Society, Vol. 2, no. 3 (1988), pp. 274–90.
99 Srinivas, ‘Some Reflections on Dowry’, pp. 9–10.
100 Cf. Oldenburg, Dowry Murder.
101 Lindberg, Experience and Identity, pp. 315–22.
102 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 165–7.
103 Lindberg, Experience and Identity, p. 322.
104 Centre for Women's Studies and Development, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kochi, A Situational Analysis of Domestic Violence against Women in Kerala (New Delhi: Government of India, 2005).
105 Srinivasan, ‘Daughters or Dowries?’, p. 606.
106 Rajni Palriwala, ‘The Spider's Web: Seeing Dowry, Fighting Dowry’, in Tamsin Bradley, Emma Tomalin, and Mangala Subramaniam (eds), Dowry: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice (London: Zed Books, 2009), pp. 144–76.