How To Put An Halt To Dowry Deaths?
`Dowry’ is the term denoted to the ‘gifts’ given to the girl by her parents at the time of her marriage. In the past, the girl was herself considered the greatest gift of God, and she was referred to as ‘Goddess Lakshmi’, (Goddess of wealth) but now the times have changed. Now the greedy people have begun to torture innocent girls in the name of dowry. The greedy people doesn’t get satisfied with reasonable dowry given to them in marriage. They demand huge dowry from the girl’s parents and once their demands are accepted, they keep on asking one thing or the other. If the girl refuses to bow before their unreasonable demands, they kill the girl.
Infact the greatest villain of dowry deaths are mostly mother-in-laws who may be kind towards their own children, but are extremely cruel towards their daughter-in-laws. They are mostly jealous of virtuous daughter-in-laws. They become jealous as they are very possessive of their sons. When they see their sons getting attached to their wives, they become jealous. Then, they try to find one fault or the other in their daughter-in-law to make her position down infront of others. They are mostly the persons who prompt their sons and husbands to kill the girls.
It’s not that every mother-in-law is cruel. Some mother-in-laws love their daughter-in-laws more than their own daughters, but they are very few in numbers. Most of the mother-in-laws are very cruel towards their daughter-in-laws.
It is essential to put an end to dowry deaths. An anti-dowry act was introduced in 1961, but it was not implemented. The states like Bihar and Punjab took an initiative to drive away this evil, but since no strict laws were implemented to eradicate it, therefore these measures did not reduce the increasing number of dowry deaths in India. Here are some suggestions, through which this evil could be eliminated from the root.
Strict laws must be framed and implemented against people who demand dowry. Dowry should be totally prohibited. The girl’s parents may give a few gifts as per their capacity, but the in-laws should not be allowed to demand dowry from them. They should be put behind the bars if they do so.
The mother-in-laws attitude against their daughter-in-laws must be caring and considerate. The daughter-in-laws too should love and respect their mother-in-laws and all elders of their family. They should love their mother-in-laws more than their mothers and their mother-in-laws should love them more than their daughters.
The girls should somehow try to do more and more work to please their in-laws. The mother-in-laws like hard working girls and they appreciate a girl who does every work with humility. The mother-in-laws should not overburden girls with much work, else they get annoyed. Everybody in the family should take care of one-another. If such a loving attitude is developed by each member of the family, there would be no dowry death and the entire nation would dance on the tunes of songs of love.
