Dowry

SURE SOLUTION What parents try to achieve — unsuccessfully — through the fixing of heavy dowers, is stability in their daughters’ marriages. But such stability relates more to the girl’s appreciation of the realities of life than to the manipulation of the dower, or to any other material consideration. It is unfortunate that a great deal of wishful thinking is indulged in in our present society, whereas what is needed is a keener awareness of the root cause of familial and societal problems. The commonest manifestations of these are quarrels with inlaws, and sometimes even the breaking up of the home. The main reason for the increasing frequency of such tribulation in married life is the absence of any real appreciation on the· part of the bride of what her new role in the family is supposed to be. The bride comes from her parent’s home where she has had the unstinted affection of her father, mother, sisters and brothers. This relationship, and the place in the family which it gives her, are usually taken for granted, and seldom regarded as factors in life which have to be striven for. She is seldom conscious that these very valuable elements in family living are not just hers for the taking when she enters her new home as a married woman. They have to be worked for, and she has to show herself deserving of them; only then can she claim the kind of love and regard which she had had as a matter of right from early childhood in her parents’ home. This initial lack of awareness on her part is very often the cause of major rifts later on in her married life. A girl is the flesh and blood of her parents. She is loved by them whether she is good or bad, whether she is active or idle, whether she helps her parents or not, and she can safely expect them to continue to love her, regardless of the circumstances of her life, and regardless of how her own character develops. But she has no such blood relationship with her in-laws. Love from them will never be unconditional, but will exist, cease to exist, increase or decrease, in direct relation to the impression which her character and abilities make upon them in the general round of daily living. For the bride, entering the marriage bond is like undergoing a series of tests, the outcome of which will determine whether her married life will be stable and happy, or exactly the reverse. If a girl feels like a fish out of water in her new home, it simply means that she has to make greater efforts to understand and adapt herself to her new environment. Wise parents will warn their daughters in advance that they must learn to mold themselves to new sets of circumstances. A girl who enters marriage with a correct appreciation of what is required of her will make the transition with the greatest of ease. She will soon, by virtue of her character and accomplishments, earn the same honorable position in her parents-in-law’s home as she had in her parents’ home solely on account of their love for her. For such a girl, entering marriage will be as easy as changing her habits of dress with the change of the season. In the case of a girl who enters marriage, uninstructed by her parents as to the realities of life in her parents-in-Iaw’s home, friction is likely to arise because she does not consider her