April 27, 2006

We call ourselves Muslim because we pray five times a day, give zakat, perform Haj, fast during Ramazan and believe there is one God and Muhammad (PBUH) is His Messenger. But the relationship between Allah and a human is more than the performance of rituals. It lies in how the religious code is undertaken to touch people’s lives. By those standards only a few can truly call themselves Muslims!

Whether it is inheritance, remarriage or dowry, we try to skirt around the religious code to make it fit our demands. Families try to deprive women of their rightful inheritance; widowhood or divorces are frowned upon, and in extreme cases considered dissolute if the will to remarry is shown. One of the most blatant defiance of the Islamic religious code is at full play when marriage meets flamboyance in the form of dowry and display.

Austerity preached by religion is forgotten. Consideration to avoid extremity is overtaken by the need to sustain customs and traditions antithetical to Islam. Dowry is one of those customs which has no precedence in our religion, and yet forms an elemental part of our society. Right from the most affluent down to the most financially deprived, the custom of dowry is a direct violation of the essence of this dynamic religion called, Islam. But nobody has the desire or the will to dismantle it.

The concept of dowry does not exist in Islam. On the contrary it enjoins the groom to give a ‘bridal-gift’ or ‘dower’ as a token of love and assurance to his wife at the time of marriage without which marriage cannot be solemnised. An Islamic wedding following the religious code is a simple nikah ceremony performed by a qazi and witnessed by close relatives and friends. There is no compulsion on the bride’s family to host lavish banquets, as is mostly the case. In fact, the groom is required to give a reception (valima) after the nikah.

Those precedents set by the Prophet (PBUH) to suit women are wilfully forgotten. Marriage nowadays is a series of extravagant events, according to the social placement of families, taking expenditure to a level of vulgarity. A bride’s parents end up overstretching their means, if they are limited, for the sake of tradition they dare not go against. Dowry has become a statement on the stature of parents and in all its moral morbidity a token of validation of their daughters’ worth.

The existence of dowries in developing countries like Pakistan as pre-empted bequest to daughters undermines the concept of gender equality, making them appear as inferior partners in marriage unless supported by material accompaniments.

Contrary to religion, women in our society usually have no ownership rights to inheritance or property making them economically vulnerable. A dowry intended primarily to endow daughters with some financial security in a marriage has had a reverse effect on their positions. Instead of giving them security the institution of dowry as transfers from parents to daughters has helped to maim their independence. Their economic dependence from the time of birth to marriage puts them in a weak position giving perpetuity to the ‘burden’ legacy.

It is difficult to put a date to the establishment of dowry. Some sociologists document it to the ancient Greco-Roman time. During the Middle Ages dowry as bride-price prevailed through much of Europe and continued to exist in the Renaissance period. Then came the era of enlightenment, progress and development and brought in its wake the awareness among women not to be bartered as commodities.

Even though brides in South Asia are not bartered literally, their bride-price as dowry has little to show by way of nuptial development. According to a study, Dowry and Property Rights done by Siwan Anderson, professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, in 2004, approximately 4,700 households were surveyed in Pakistan to collect data on dowry.

Information on dowries was collected from females who had married in the past five years. “Nearly 800 responded to the dowry question and of those, roughly 700 received a dowry from their parents and reported the value and contents of the transfer. A very large proportion of the sample, 87 per cent, paid a dowry (88 per cent in urban areas and 86 per cent in rural areas).”

Not only is the payment of dowry a contradiction to Islamic values, it is a breach of the 1976 Dowry and Bridal Gift Restriction Act. The Act fixed the upper limit of Rs5,000 for dowry and Rs2,000 as maximum expenditure on meals at a marriage ceremony. Of course, nobody adhered to the legally prescribed upper limit in Pakistan and dowry continued as an essential part in every social stratum. But interestingly enough the same upper limit of Rs5,000 was used by the groom’s side at the time of divorce suits filed to recover dowry. Since the upper limit could not exceed Rs5,000, the groom’s side was not legally bound to pay the rest. There have been many instances of women being deprived of their dowry after divorce as a consequence of legal misinterpretation.

In 1993, the Pakistan Law Commission recommended amending and updating the 1976 Act and suggested the limit for dowry to be increased to Rs50,000 in the case of urban areas and Rs20,000 in rural areas. The wedding expenditure was raised to Rs25,000 in the urban and Rs10,000 in the rural areas. The law continued to be flouted and in 2003 the Law Commission again announced that it was preparing a draft law on Marriage and Expenses, Dowry and Bridal Gift (Restriction) Act 2003 to replace the 1976 Act.

But laws have never made this society compliant for the simple reason that accountability in case of non-compliance has become a non-compulsion. Twenty-four-year-old Zubeida does not know of any dowry restricting laws. Since she got married two years back her life has been an account of misery and torture given to her by her husband and in-laws for failing to bring adequate dowry. She refuses to admit the left side of her charred face is caused by a deliberate attempt on her life by her in-laws. “No, it was my fault. I did not check the stove before lighting it. It’s been two months now that it burst and burnt me. My husband came to my rescue and doused the fire. I was taken to the Mayo Hospital where I stayed for a month and underwent two operations,” narrates Zubeida. But her elder sister, Gulshan, has an altogether different perspective on it.

She accuses Zubeida’s in-laws of trying to kill her so that her husband can remarry a financially stronger woman. “My father had promised Zubeida’s in-laws a dowry worth Rs500,000. At the time of marriage he could only arrange Rs200,000. He begged my sister’s in-laws to look after Zubeida and told them that within three months he would pay the remaining amount in cash,” says Gulshan.

Zubeida’s father, Hameed gave the remaining amount, not realising the in-laws’ demands would not end with payment. “Sometimes they want a new TV, at other times Farooq, Zubeida’s husband asked her to get money for a new motorbike. My father owns a small shop in Dharampura and has a huge family to support. We couldn’t afford their demands,” reveals Gulshan.

A few weeks into marriage gave Zubeida her first encounter with domestic violence. For an entire year her husband’s beating bouts were kept secret from her family till Gulshan came to visit her. “Her upper lip was cut and swollen. She had bruises on her forehead and walked with a limp. I wasn’t stupid and knew something was wrong. Zooby made me promise not to tell the family that Farooq was beating her for not getting him a motorbike from the father. He also doesn’t want her to have any children and is always threatening to divorce her. I’ve told her to leave him but she wouldn’t listen. She says that all the money abba gave as dowry would be wasted if she was divorced. I’m sure they tried to burn her alive. Zooby would rather die than come back to us,” says her tearful sister.

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