The Wedding Samaritan

As many ladies will testify, getting a man to propose marriage is no cake walk. In India, if the girl happens to belong to a poor family, it can be almost impossible. The villain of the piece is the insidious dowry system - legally outlawed but widely prevalent. As the government here has learned the hard way, passing a law cannot overcome centuries of tradition.

The dowry system is not restricted to the poor, of course. In most ethnic societies in India, if you have a daughter you are expected to pay through your nose to get her married. A little clarification would be appropriate at this point. The term "India" actually refers to a loose confederation of diverse ethnic groups - ranging from the fair skinned in the North to the almost black in the South - with various shades of brown in between. There is even an unofficial rate card for eligible bachelors. Doctors command a bride price of $100,000; it is $75,000 for an engineer and so on. As an engineer, I was eligible for big bucks but, being an idealistic idiot, I settled for a King bed and a dining table.

Naturally, the dowry demands are less exorbitant among the less affluent, but most are still in excess of an average father's ability to pay. Most families have no option but to take loans from unscrupulous money lenders (they can't go to banks because dowry is "illegal") at outlandish interest rates. It usually takes a lifetime of financial scrounging to pay it back.

The alternative is to lower your expectations dramatically. Girls from very poor families are often married off to known undesirables. Not surprisingly in such unions, drunkenness, illicit affairs and even beatings are par for the course. Divorce is not an easy option and, indeed, would make little practical sense; since the girl would either have to spend the rest of her life alone, or repeat the whole tortuous process. Most wives bear it stoically as their karma.