College of Business, Tennessee State University The Journal of Developing Areas

The Institution of Dowry in India: Why It Continues to Prevail
Author(s): Sonia Dalmia and Pareena G. Lawrence

Source: The Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 71-93
Published by: College of Business, Tennessee State University
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The Journal of Developing Areas Volume 38 Number 2 Spring 2005
THE INSTITUTION OF DOWRY IN INDIA:

WHY IT CONTINUES TO PREVAIL
Sonia Dalmia
Grand Valley State University, USA
Pareena G Lawrence
University of Minnesota, USA
ABSTRACT
The practice of dowry in India has been theoretically linked to a number of factors
nature of residence and inheritance system, women's role in production, kinship org
ative availability of potential spouses, and social stratification in society. This arti
examines dowries in India and provides an institutional and economic rationale for th
continued prevalence of the system. Using data on marriage transactions and on th
family traits of marital partners the article demonstrates that payments of dowry se
the measurable differences in individual characteristics of the bride's and groom's an
tive households. Thus, dowry qualifies as the "price" paid for a "good match" in the m
ket. Results also reveal that the form of inheritance system, the residence of the bride a
and the gender ratio of marriageable women to men have no effect on the incide
dowry.
JEL Classifications: Z l, J 12
Keywords: Dowry, India
INTRODUCTION
In many traditional societies, some transfer of money, goods and serv

pany the initiation of marriage. When these transfers are made from brides a
ilies to grooms and their families, they are broadly classified as dowries. A tr
opposite direction, from grooms and their families to brides and their famil
ly found in polygamous societies with well-defined property rights, is gener
bride price (Bergstrom, 1993). Both dowry and bride price have a patterned d
72 Sonia Dalmia and Pareena G. Lawrence
worldwide. Of the 1267 societies recorded in the Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas, two-
thirds practice bride price while only six per cent follow the custom of dowry (Murdock,
1967).
The nature of marriage transactions in a given society has been theoretically
linked to a number of factors. These include the form of inheritance system and residence
of the bride after marriage; kinship organizations; dominant mode of production and the
consequent relative economic contribution of women vis-a-vis men; the tendencies
toward egalitarianism or stratification in the society; and a shortage of potential brides or
bridegrooms (Becker, 1991; Borgerhoff-Mulder, 1988; Boserup, 1970; Caldwell, Reddy
and Caldwell, 1983; Goody, 1973; Kolenda, 1984; Lindenbaum, 1981; Spiro, 1975; Van
der Veen, 1972; Yalman, 1967). None of these factors, however, completely or sufficient-
ly explains why different types of marriage transactions occur where and when they do.
In this article we examine the role of dowries in India and provide an economic
and institutional rationale for the continued existence and endurance of the system. The
custom of dowry is responsible for a number of ills against women in India. The most seri-
ous of these being the mental and physical abuse of wives, and bride-burning or murder
of brides due to the inability of a bride's family to meet the dowry demands of the groom's
family. Moreover, it has been widely reported in the literature that over the last fifty years
not only has the size of dowry payments increased, communities that traditionally paid
bride prices have also switched to paying dowries (Rao, 1993). Unfortunately, the Dowry
Prohibition Act of 1961 has not resulted either in the prevention of dowry payments or the
punishment of dowry offenders.
Despite the widely acknowledged problems associated with dowry there is a
paucity of empirical studies that systematically analyze the causes of dowry in India. This
article takes a step in that direction and in doing so makes two important contributions to
the existing literature on marriage transactions in India. First, to our knowledge, there is
no empirical counterpart to the theoretical literature that explains dowry and its size based
on the inheritance system, nature of residence, kinship organizations, and the tendencies
toward egalitarianism or stratification in society. We empirically examine these issues in
this article. Second, using data from north (Uttar Pradesh) and south (Karnataka) India we
develop and test a model capable of explaining marriage transactions in India. Following
Rao1 (1993), we adapt Rosen's (1974) implicit market model to the Indian marriage mar-
ket and take the view that dowry is a simple economic transaction that functions to 'equal-
ize' the value of marriage services exchanged by the households of the bride and groom.
In other words, we propose that dowry is simply the price of a good match in the marriage
market.2
The remainder of the article is organized as follows: section first reviews the rel-
evant literature; the second section develops a theoretical model based on implicit mar-
kets; the third section discusses the data used in the analysis; the fourth section presents
the results; and the fifth section concludes.
The Institution of Dowry in India 73
SOCIOECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON DOWRY
Inheritance Laws and Practices
The practice of dowry in India has an extensive history beginning in approxi-
mately the 13th or 14th Century AD (Rao, 1982). Its origin can be traced to the Hindu suc-
cession laws as they stood prior to the Hindu law reforms of the 1950's.3 Under the
Hindu law of the Mitakshara system, a female was not entitled to a share in parental
wealth, while a male was entitled to a share of the family wealth at birth.4 The practice
of giving a daughter a handsome dowry appears to have compensated for this restriction,
by allowing presentation of wealth to her at an appropriate time, usually her marriage.
Thus, 'dowry' acts as a social mode of transferring the rights of inheritance to a daughter,
and consists only of movable property (Krishnamurthy, 1981; Miller, 1981; Sharma,
1984). Dowry is subsequently viewed as a pre-mortem inheritance of a female progeny
(after which the daughters generally have no rights to the parental estate), that helps pre-
vent break-up of the family property and at the same time provides her with some kind of
social and economic security.
However, the historical notion of dowry as Stridhanam, a daughter's wedding
settlement, does not explain the variation in the practice of giving dowry. For dowry to be
justified as an inheritance, it must be the general form of marriage payment, and it must
represent wealth that stays under the control of the bride. Neither of these prerequisites is
completely met across India. First, other forms of marriage transactions and marriages
involving no monetary transfers are statistically prevalent in India (Agarwal, 1995).
Second, in many cases, a large portion of a woman's dowry does not remain directly under
her control (Miller, 1980). Moreover, dowry does not represent a fixed share of a partic-
ular divisible estate; it differs in value and timing from male inheritance. Dowry for
women is linked to their marriage. Without a marriage there is no dowry and hence no
inheritance for women, while inheritance for men is guaranteed.
Furthermore, the argument that dowry is a pre-mortem inheritance of a daughter
does not explain monetary transfers made to the groom's family by the bride's family that
has no wealth or inheritance to give to their daughter. It therefore remains unclear how
and with what justification do the bride's parents spend, beyond their capacity, on the mar-
riage of their daughters? More importantly, dowry continues to be given in the states of
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in spite of their gender-neutral inheritance laws.5 Thus,
Stridhanam cannot be considered as an adequate explanation for the practice of dowries
in India.
Kinship Organizations: A North-South Perspective
With the increase in ethnographic reporting on marital payments in the last three
decades, there is evidence to suggest a pattern of regional variation in marriage transac-
tions in India. The salient feature of this pattern is a broad north-south dichotomy in types
of marriage payments and overall cost of marriage.
North India and south India have a long-standing history of distinctness with
respect to kinship and marriage systems. They have very different structural patterns of
inheritance and gift giving at marriage. Most of north India is characterized by a patrilin-
eal inheritance system (where descent is traced through male lineage) and a patrilocal res-
idence system (where the married male brings his wife to live with his father's family)
where exogamy (a group of close relatives between whom marriage is forbidden), exclu-
sion of women from property rights, unilateral flow of gifts from the bride's family to the
groom's family, female hypergamy (marriage of a woman to a man of the same or a high-
er social status, caste etc.), and inter-village marriages with non-kin are the norm
(Trautmann, 1993).
In contrast to the north, states in the south are characterized by endogamy (mar-
riage between close relatives or notably cross cousins), isogamy (status equity between
the bride's family and the groom's family), recognition of women's rights to land, and
short distances of marriage migration. Bride price is relatively more common, and mar-
riage expenses are likely to be more equally shared by the families of the bride and the
groom (Dyson,and Moore, 1983; Miller, 1981). As women may sometimes inherit prop-
erty rights in the south, a crucial difference between the two regions is that in the north,
dowry consists of movable goods only, while in the south it may include land.
Although marriage transactions have been widely discussed in the literature, the
factors influencing their regional variations remain a matter of speculation. In fact, the lit-
erature contains several contradictory claims and fmdings on this subject. For instance,
Srinivas (1965) in his work on the Coorgs of Karnataka finds that dowry is compatible
with cross-cousin marriage and marriage among equals and is not necessarily or only
linked with female hypergamy. Moreover, 'there are some significant although locally
confined sections of matrilineal and bilateral inheritance (both male and female) in south
India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh), where women's property rights are not
the exception but the rule' (Agarwal, 1995). As a result, the south exhibits considerable
variation, such that in some cases the groom's side bears greater overall costs, in other
cases costs are equally shared, while in still others, which comprise a significant propor-
tion, the burden of overall costs falls on the side of the bride (Miller, 1980).
Though organization of kinship, exogamy and hypergamy may have an impact
on increasing the size of dowry payments, they constitute too small a proportion of dowry-
paying marriages to serve as the only explanation for the existence and regional variations
in marriage transactions in India.
Mode of Production: Economic Contribution of Women Perspective
There also appears to be a broad north-south dichotomy in marriage transactions

associated with the economic value of women in India. Goody (1973) suggests that
women's role in production and hence their contribution to subsistence can shed light on
the type of marriage and marriage payments existing in a society. That is, the nature of
marriage transactions is an outcome of sexual division of agricultural labor, as high or low

economic value of women is determined by their relative labor force participation rates in
agricultural production. Accordingly, dowries in north India are sometimes explained by
its plough-based agricultural production of wheat (primarily), which excludes women
from production, while bride price in the south is explained by the region's intensive rice-
growing economy, which is dependent on female labor (Miller, 1980). In sum, bride price
regions typically have paddy cultivation and high female contribution to subsistence
(Boserup, 1970).
However, Gulati (1975) and Schlegel and Eloul (1987) find that even regions
characterized by low female labor contribution sometimes exhibit bride price as the com-
mon form of marriage payment. Moreover, the area of low female labor force participa-
tion stretches from Punjab to Assam (north India to east India). The southern state of
Kerala also falls into this category. What is surprising about these states is that they
include both wheat-producing areas (theoretically low female labor demand) as well as
rice-producing areas (theoretically high female labor demand). One would therefore
expect low and high female labor participation in the respective ecological regions on the
basis of a simple demand theory, but this is not the case (Gulati, 1975; Harrell and Dickey,
1985). This suggests that there are other factors that affect female labor from participat-
ing in agricultural activities and therefore broad conclusions about geographical distribu-
tion of bride price and dowry cannot be totally derived from the dominant mode of pro-
duction in a society.
Social Stratification Perspective
It has also been noted that there exists a close correlation between class, caste or
socioeconomic position and marriage transactions in India (Goody, 1973; Miller, 1981).
It is held that the custom of dowry is more prevalent in the upper caste and classes, while
bride price or reciprocity is more frequent in the lower caste and division of society
(Dickemann, 1991; Gaulin and Boster, 1990; Stone and James, 1995). This is consistent
with the argument that the pattern of exclusion of women from economic production roles
varies by caste/class. Women of lower caste/class are less subject to restrictions concern-
ing employment outside the reaim of production and reproduction within the household
(Van Willigen and Channa, 1991). Moreover, land tenure patterns show a higher percent-
age of landless population in the south suggesting that reciprocity in the south may be a
result of relatively more lower class families in the region compared to the north
(Schwartzberg, 1961).
Miller (1981) finds dowry payments more common among both upper and lower
castes and class in the north based on their kinship patterns and low female labor force
participation. In the south, Miller (1981) finds reciprocity among propertied groups, and
bride price among the non-propertied groups. However, Caplan (1984) finds contrary evi-
dence in rural south India. She finds that wedding costs are more equitably shared
between the two sides at lower levels of caste or class than they are among the wealthy
and prominent. She also finds no evidence of bride price payments, irrespective of class
affiliations in the south. These fmdings, therefore, cast doubt on claims that class or caste
can explain marriage transactions in India.
Thus, we can conclude that neither Stridhanam, nor mode of production, kinship
organizations or social stratification can account for the existence of dowry. Moreover,
none of these factors go very far in accounting for the variation in the size of dowries in
India.
Demographic Perspective
The ratio of females to males in the total population has been steadily decreas-
ing (see Figure 1) since 1901 in India (Miller, 1981; Mitra, 1979; Natarajan, 1971). When
considering how such a low gender ratio usually affects the relative availability of poten-
tial spouses in the marriage market, it seems natural that the scarcity of females would
generate a marriage squeeze-an asymmetry in the availability of potential spouses-
against males and thereby give females an advantage in the marriage market. In other
words, scarcity of women would result in women receiving a bride price from men as an
inducement to enter matrimony (Becker, 1991).
However, it is important to recognize that the ratio of women to men in the total
population should be considered only when men and women marry at the same age. When
the average age of women at marriage is substantially lower than the average age of
males, as is the case in India, a surplus of marriageable women gets added to the other-
wise approximately equal numbers. Moreover, in a growing population where each cohort
is larger than the previous older cohort, this surplus can be considerable. Consequently,
what had been a shortage of females without age selection becomes a surplus of females
with it and is further accentuated with a growing population.
In the 1950's several anthropologists noticed that traditional bride price paying
communities in India had begun to pay dowries, while communities that were traditional-
ly paying dowries were subject to a sharp increase in the real value of these transfers
(Epstein, 1973; Miller 1981; Rajaram, 1983). Researchers explanation of these trends sug-
gests that the demographic imbalance between the number of marriageable males and
females is largely responsible for the contemporary marriage behavior in India (Bhat and
Halli, 1999; Billig, 1992; Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell, 1983; Rao, 1993). Accordingly,
marriage squeeze is viewed as the foremost reason for the growing practice of dowry in
marriages in India.
Although the imbalance in the gender ratio argument explains who gets the rents
from marriage, it does not explain the variation in the size of these monetary payments in
individual marriages. In other words, while a surplus of women in the marriage market
shifts the distribution of marital resources in favor of men (the recipients of dowry), the
differing magnitude of dowry from marriage to marriage remains independent of the mar-
riageable age gender ratio.
Moreover, most cultures in the world are characterized by persistent age gaps
between spouses with women typically marrying older men, and a growing population,
however, the practice of dowry is limited historically to only six percent of the 1267 soci-
eties reported in the Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas (Anderson, 2001). Clearly, a cross-
cultural examination of the marriage squeeze hypothesis in dowry and bride price paying
societies would be of great value.6 Unfortunately such data is not available that would
allow us to examine the connection between a shortage of potential brides or grooms and
the nature of marriage transactions. Therefore, broad conclusions about the size of and
variation in marriage payments cannot be totally derived from the demographic trends in
a society.
Another explanation for the continued prevalence of the institution of dowry in
India may relate to the heterogeneity in individual bride and groom characteristics and the
characteristics of their respective households. We examine the heterogeneity issue in the
following section.
THEORY OF EQUALIZING DIFFERENTIALS
The theoretical literature on marital transactions so far points to the

effects of cultural norms, economic, social and demographic factors in dete
role of dowries in India, an interaction that has received little attention from
mists or other social scientists (Agarwal, 1995). In this section, we develop a
that adds to the literature on dowries. Following Rao (1993) we adapt Rosen's (1974)
implicit market model to the Indian marriage market. We take the view that marital
arrangements between households are manifestations of implicit contracts serving to
'equalize' the imbalances in the value of marriage. In other words, we propose that it is
the combination of traits of the groom, the bride, and their respective households that con-
stitutes the relevant 'price' of a match. Consequently, variations in the 'price' received by
grooms at marriage are equalizing differences for the different bundles of characteristics
possessed by the "match."7
Marriages in India are largely an alliance between two families. As a result, it is
the household of each potential spouse that makes the marital decisions. The household of
a bride typically initiates a search for a groom for their daughter and gives consideration
to both individual traits (such as schooling, age, height, wage earned by the groom) and
family background (such as wealth, father's occupation and caste) of the groom. In a large
majority of marriages, the bride's household pays a dowry to the groom's household, the
value of which depends upon the traits of the bride, the groom and their respective house-
holds.
To model the demand for groom traits, we assume that the utility of the bride's
household is defined over the traits of the potential groom and his household, conditional
on the traits of the bride and her household:
U=U(G,X;B) U'>O, U"<O (l)

where is a vector of desirable traits of
good (having unit price), and is a vect
and her household. The bride household is assumed to maximize the utility function in
by choosing and, subject to a budget constraint that includes a non-linear hedonic dowr
function, which maps the traits of potential brides and grooms to a transfer value:
X + D(G, B; R) = yB (2)
where is the premarital wealth of the bride household and is a vector of shifters of the
dowry function that are not related to individual or household traits. represents outside
factors such as caste/class variations, custom of exogamy/endogamy, region, marriage
squeeze, and the year of marriage.8 If, a dowry is paid by the bride's household to the
groom's household, if, a bride price is received by the bride's household from the groom's
household. The dowry function in (2) can be interpreted as the locus of tangencies of the
equilibrium matches. In fact, the function is identical with the set of hedonic prices,
'equalizing differences', and gives the minimum transfers available in the marriage mar-
ket, for each package of and, to the bride's household.
Estimation
Estimation of the hedonic dowry function requires specifying . This involves

regressing observed dowries on the relevant characteristics of the bride and groom and
their respective households, using a functional form that is appropriate. Since theory does
not suggest a preferred functional fonn and given the expected non-linear relationship
between the attributes of the bride and groom and dowry we use a double-log specifica-
tion based on fit and significance to estimate the hedonic dowry function
n m k
Ln(D) = a + Z/3,Ln(G,) + Xyin(B )+2 i(Ri) + i

i=1 i=1 i=1 (3)
where is dowry, th
are the measure of
shifters, and is the
DATA
The data employed in this research has been compiled from two sources: the
Indian Census (1961-1991) and the retrospective survey of households conducted in 1995
by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). While the Census data
is used to construct the marriageable age gender ratio for India to estimate a more accu-
rate measure of the 'marriage squeeze,' the retrospective survey data provide household
level information on marriage transactions, and individual characteristics of the bride, the
groom and their respective families.
Marriage Market Gender Ratio
Adequate data on marital patterns and trends are not available for India.
Normally such data are accessible from marriage registration records. However, a mar-
riage register does not exist in India, and therefore no direct data on age at marriage is
available. In the absence of such direct data, demographers have utilized information on
age, gender and marital status distribution from the census to study marriage behavior and
patterns (Goyal, 1988). Hence, we use data on age and gender composition, over the peri-
od 1881-1991, compiled from the Indian census reports of 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, and
from Goyal (1988) to create the marriage squeeze indicator.
Table 1: Proportion of Singles and Mean age at Marriage of

Males and Females in India, Respectively.
Age 1891- 1901- 1911- 1921- 1931- 1941- 1951- 1961- 19'
Group 01 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81
0-9 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.96 0.97 0.97 1 1
10-14 0.85 0.87 0.88 0.79 0.85 0.85 0.93 0.95 0
15-19 0.63 0.67 0.69 0.56 0.69 0.66 0.76 0.82 0
20-24 0.40 0.39 0.41 0.28 0.38 0.37 0.44 0.50 0
25-29 0.19 0.19 0.20 0.12 0.20 0.16 0.18 0.19 0
30-34 0.11 0.10 0.11 0.06 0.09 0.08 0.08 0.07 0
35-39 0.07 0.06 0.07 0.03 0.07 0.05 0.05 0.04 0
40-44 0.07 0.05 0.06 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.03 0
45-49 0.06 0.04 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.03 0
50-54 0.06 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.03 0
Mean age 20.01 20.41 20.74 18.44 20.3 19.93 21.39 22.24 2
at
marriage
Age 1891- 1901- 1911- 1921- 1931- 1941- 1951- 1961- is
Group 01 11 21 31 41 51 61 71
0-9 0.94 0.94 0.95 0.92 0.95 0.97 1 1
10-14 0.54 0.55 0.60 0.48 0.76 0.85 0.80 0.88 0
15-19 0.16 0.16 0.19 0.16 0.27 0.29 0.30 0.46 0
20-24 0.05 0.04 0.06 0.03 0.06 0.07 0.06 0.09 0
25-29 0.03 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.02 0
30-34 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0
35-39 0.03 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0
Mean age 12.77 13.07 13.53 12.52 14.94 15.43 16.1 17.23 .41
at marriage
Choice of the marriage squeeze indicator takes some care, since it must indicate
the relative numbers of men and women who attain marriageable age in a particular
cohort. Table 1 shows the proportion of singles and mean age at marriage of males and
females in India. We use the ratio of women in the ten-nineteen age group to men in the
twenty-twenty nine age group to construct the marriageable age gender ratio, as these are
the age brackets in which the largest proportion of women and men marry in India.
Figure 1: Gender Ratio in India
Gender Ratio in India
0.98-
0.97-
. 0.96
0.95
E 0.94-
IL 0.93
0.92 - I X X -| R
1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991
Year
Source: Census of India 1991
Figure 2: Marriageable Age Gender Ratio.
Marriageable Age Gender Raio
1.6-
~1.4-
21 1.2 -
p1.0
O 0.8-
~0.6-
r~0.4-
~0.2-
L.0
1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991
Year
Source: Census of India 1881-1991 and Goyal (1988)
The marriageable age gender ratio is presented in Figure 2. Clearly the figure
exhibits the ability of the growing population of India, which results in a larger younger
cohort than the previous older one, to exacerbate the marriage squeeze against women.
Comparison of Figure 2 and Figure 1, which presents the ratio of females to males in the
total population, thus exhibits the ability of female age hypergamy to completely reverse
a female marriage market advantage. So what had been a surplus of males in the marriage
market without age selection becomes a surplus of females with it.
Only three factors can affect the characteristics of a population (such as the dis-
tribution of ages or the gender ratio) as well as increase its size: high birth rate, low death
rate and migration. While external migration has had only a slight affect on the popula-
tion of India and hence its' gender ratio, high birth rate has created an excess of marriage-
able females over males in the marriage market and it's higher female mortality over male
mortality has yielded more men than women in the total population at each age cohort. In
other words, while a higher population growth has tightened the marriage squeeze, high-
er female mortality has relaxed it. This implies that a surplus of women over men at mar-
riageable ages must indicate population growth fast enough, as shown by Figure 3, to out-
weigh the fact that there are more men than women in the same age cohort.
Figure 3: Population Growth Rate in India
30.00
25.00 -
i 20.00-
e 15.00 -
:i 10.00 -
, 5.00-
0.00
1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991
Year
Source: Census of India 1991
Cleary, a population with declining mortality, relatively high birth rate and con-
siderable age gap between spouses will have larger younger cohorts than older ones. As a
result, if women tend to marry older men, there would be a surplus of them in the mar-
riage market as they belong to a younger and hence larger cohort. This phenomenon
known as the 'marriage squeeze' is believed to have contributed to the escalation of
dowries in India over the last forty years (Billig, 1992; Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell,
1983; Rao, 1993). In section four we empirically test for the impact of 'marriage squeeze'
on marriage transactions in India.
Retrospective Sample Data
The data on marriage transactions and individual and household characteristics

of brides and grooms come from the retrospective household surveys conducted for the
study titled 'Poverty, Gender Inequality and Reproductive Choice.' The fieldwork for this
research was undertaken by the National Council of Applied Economic Research
(NCAER), New Delhi, between July 1995 and September 1995.9 Seventy villages repre-
senting five districts of Uttar Pradesh (north India) and five districts of Karnataka (south
India) were chosen for the purposes of the study resulting in a sample size of 1878 house-
holds. In Uttar Pradesh, the districts surveyed were Almora, Faizabad, Ghazipur, Mathura,
and Muzaffarnagar, while those in Kamnataka were Bidar, Dakshin, Kannad, Kodagu,
Kolar and Mysore. The districts were chosen to represent the agroclimatic diversities of
their state.
Households in the two states were surveyed on issues ranging from social, eco-
nomic and demographic features, to the exercise of reproductive rights as seen through
patterns of contraceptive use by fertile couples. Labor use patterns, kinship support and
role of the elderly within the family were also explored. 10 For the purpose of our article
only Hindu households, where both spouses responded to the questionnaire and no rele-
vant data was found to be missing were selected. This left us with a sample size of 465
households in Uttar Pradesh and 572 households in Karnataka.
Some observations relating to the data deserve mention. First, most marriages
had transactions on both sides associated with them, reflecting ritual gift exchange
between the two families. 1 1 To isolate the 'price' component of the transfers, net value of
the transfer is considered. That is, we look at the transfers received by the groom and his
household minus transfers paid by the groom and his household. The term 'dowry' has
been used in a number of different ways in the literature. Here we employ it to mean the
net exchange of all cash and in-kind gifts made from the bride household to the groom
household at the time of marriage and the expenses incurred in marriage ceremonies by
the bride household (net of those incurred by the groom household). One major problem
with the net dowry variable is that the dowries in the sample were made at vastly differ-
ent points in time, since the earliest marriage dates to 1956 and the most recent to 1994.
To deal with this problem, all net dowry values were converted to constant 1994 prices.
Second, the data provides no information on the pre-marital income of the bride
and groom households. However, the pre-marital income of the parental households of the
bride and groom is likely to be highly correlated with their wealth at the time of marriage.
It is important that this wealth variable reflect the bride and the groom household's wealth
position before or at the time of marriage. The 1995 Retrospective Survey obtained infor-
mation on the parental household wealth (in terms of land owned) of both marriage part-
ners just before they were married. The use of this wealth variable ensures that the bride
household's wealth variable is exogenous to the groom selection and dowry decisions
(Rao, 1993). Finally, we cannot test to verify if dowry serves as a means to equalize the
discounted present value of wage differentials between the bride and the groom, as we do
not have any information on wages.
Table 2: Summary Statistics of the Sample

Variable Mean North South
Mean Mean
Total dowry transfer (constant 1994 rupees) 157639.9 189406.2 131490.8
[212301.6] [273416.3] [137684.7]
Net dowry transfer (constant 1994 rupees) 144492.7 169053.3 124526.5
[166772.1] [200001.8] [130641.2]
Groom's age at marriage 22.21 19.06 24.78
[5.36] [5.04] [4.09]
Bride's age at marriage 16.22 14.93 17.26
[3.73] [4.00] [3.13]
Groom's schooling (years) 4.75 5.94 3.77
[4.76] [4.99] [4.34]
Bride's schooling (years) 2.06 1.54 2.49
[3.55] [3.14] [3.79]
Groom's height (cms) 163.69 163.35 163.98
[6.57] [6.62] [6.52]
Bride's height (cms) 152.06 150.92 152.99
[7.71] [6.17] [8.66]
Groom's father's landholdings (acres) 3.1 2.73 3.40
[6.51] [5.33] [7.32]
Bride's father's landholdings (acres) 3.64 3.34 3.88
[9.38] [9.57] [9.23]
% of daughters in the groom household 35.03 36.04 34.19
[22.97] [23.47] [22.54]
Total number of children groom's household 4.66 4.53 4.77
[2.15] [1.97] [2.28]
% of daughters in the bride household 59.35 57.00 61.26
[20.17] [19.99] [20.13]
Total number of children bride's household 5.06 5.01 5.09
[2.00] [1.93] [2.06]
Year of marriage (199 79.37 78.26 80.28
[8.71] [8.95] [8.41]
Marriage squeeze index 1.31 1.17 1.10
[0.08] [0.07] [0.05]
Distance of marriage migration (kms) 28.95 30.64 27.58
[67.38] [83.1] [51.19]
High caste 0.44 0.35 0.51
Medium caste 0.40 0.47 0.35
Low caste 0.16 0.18 0.14
Uttar Pradesh 0.45
Karnataka 0.55
*Standard deviations in brackets
Summary statistics of the variables used in the empirical analysis are reported in
Table 2. There is significant variation in net dowry transfer. One would expect to see not
just temporal variation, but also significant regional differences in the factors that deter-
mine dowry. Interestingly, while the average groom is older, taller and more educated than
the average bride, the parents of the average bride own more land compared to parents of
the average groom. This suggests a fair degree of female hypergamy in the sample, as
women marry up with respect to age, height and education but not wealth. Moreover, the
bride's household appears to have more daughters (including the bride herself) and total
children compared to the groom's household. However, this may be due to the fact that
the bride households are wealthier and that there is a positive correlation between the
number of children and wealth of a household.
Summary statistics for the two regions reveal that dowries on average are about
thirty five per cent higher in the north compared to south India. While grooms in the north
are more educated, it is the brides who are comparatively more educated in the south.
There are also significant differences in the age at marriage for both brides and grooms in
the two regions with the age gap higher for the south. Both males and females marry at a
relatively younger age in the north (nineteen years and fifteen years respectively) com-
pared to their counterparts in the south (twenty five years and seventeen years respective-
ly). As the average age at marriage varies significantly between the north and south, the
marriageable age gender ratio was constructed using different age brackets for men and
women in the two regions.12 The marriage squeeze index reveals that the female's rela-
tive disadvantage is higher in the north compared to the south Indian marriage market.
Furthermore, while both the average groom and bride households are relatively
wealthier in the south, the distance of marriage migration is marginally larger for brides
in the north. As mentioned earlier, studies have claimed that the north exhibits village and
kin exogamy, implying a larger distance of marriage migration, while the south exhibits
village and kin group endogamy, which is a shorter distance of marriage migration. Our
sample, however, does not reveal any significant difference in the distance of marriage
migration between the two regions.
RESULTS
The OLS estimates of the hedonic dowry function are reported in Table 3.
Column 1 presents the estimates for India. Columns 2 and 3 present the estimates for the
north and south respectively which are discussed later. All variables except those repre-
senting the exogenous dowry shifters are measured in logs. 13
The influence of groom's education on net dowry is as expected: educated
grooms are worth more in the marriage market in India. The coefficient on bride's educa-
tion is positive and significant, suggesting that monetary transfers from brides and their
families to grooms and their families are not decreasing in bride's schooling. It seems
counterintuitive that women with more education have to pay a larger net dowry.
However, it is possible that in a hypergamous marriage market where women typically
Table 3: OLS Estimates of the Hedonic Dowry Function
Variable India North South

Intercept 2.41 13.70** 4.31
[0.89] [2.76] [1.28]
Groom's schooling (years) 0.08** 0.13** 0.02
[3.53] [4.02] [0.63]
Bride's schooling (years) 0.16** 0.07* 0.24**
[6.09] [1.82] [6.97]
Groom's age at marriage 0.31** 0.18 0.51**
[2.07] [0.81] [2.53]
Bride's age at marriage 0.14 0.20 -0.11
[.99] [0.91] [0.54]
Groom's height (cms) 2.04** 1.54* 1.25*
[3.59] [1.85] [1.65]
Bride's height (cms) 0.54 -1.29 1.13**
[1.26] [1.64] [2.24]
Groom's father's landholdings (acres) -0.01 0.03** -0.03**
[1.57] [2.25] [3.09]
Bride's father's landholdings (acres) -0.008 0.008 -0.019*
[1.01] [0.72] [1.89]
% of daughters in the bride household 0.0002 0.0011 0.0004
[0.21] [0.69] [0.28]
Medium caste 0.39** 0.20** 0.49**
[6.86] [2.41] [6.37]
High caste 0.34** 0.39** 0.30**
[6.49] [4.39] [4.73]
Distance of marriage migration (kms) -0.0001 -0.0004 0.0006
[0.29] [1.06] [1.21]
Marriageable age gender ratio 0.16 0.51 -0.28
[0.56] [1.24] [0.73]
Year of marriage -0.08** -0.07** -0.08**
[26.93] [17.39] [20.87]
Uttar Pradesh 0.28**
[5.51]
N 1037 465 572
R 2 0.5264 0.5227 0.5645
F-statistics 77.75 37.29 53.87
Note: Absolute t-values in brackets
** Significant at the 5 % level
marry men who have an equal or better education than they do, dowry has the effect o
controlling competition among women for the limited pool of desirable husbands, while
expanding the number of desirable wives in the case of men. Alternatively, it is possible
that the education of a bride may be a good indicator of her household wealth, imperfect
ly proxied by parental landholdings in our data.
The relationship between groom's age at marriage and dowry is positive and sig-
nificant. It reveals that the older the groom the larger the dowry he receives. Bergstrom
and Bagnoli (1993) outline a model that predicts why on average women marry older
men. They argue that in a society in which the economic roles of males are more divers
than the roles of females, the relative desirability of females as marriage partners ma
become evident at an earlier age than in the case of males. Thus, in equilibrium, males
who regard their prospects as unusually good choose to wait until their economic success
is revealed before choosing a bride. Their argument can be applied to the relationship
between age of the groom and the size of the dowry: older men could be economically
more successful and, being a better match, they receive larger dowries from the bride's
household.
The coefficient on groom's height is positive and statistically significant for
India. It suggests that there is a premium paid for groom's height: the taller the groom, the
larger the dowry he receives. Bride's age at marriage and bride's height, however, have
an insignificant effect on the size of monetary payments.
Surprisingly, the variable representing wealth of the groom's family (groom's
father's landholdings at marriage) is insignificant. Moreover, it's negative sign reveals
that the greater the groom's family wealth the lower the dowry he receives, may be a result
of insufficient information on pre-marital income and wealth of the groom's household.
However, it may also indicate a shift in the emphasis from household characteristics to the
individual traits of the groom, such as his age, education and height. The bride's father's
landholding also has an insignificant effect on the net dowry transfer.
Percentage of daughters in the bride's household has a positive but insignificant
effect in determining the size of dowry payments in India. The positive sign goes against
the claim that dowry is a daughter's inheritance, as one would expect a higher percentage
of daughters in a household, ceteris paribus, to reduce the net dowry transfer.
Since caste in India is positively related to the socio-economic standing of a
household in society, it has been included to test the claim that social position in society
has a positive effect on dowry distinct from the wealth effect of households. Results indi-
cate that grooms from the upper and middle caste households receive thirty four per cent
and thirty nine per cent larger dowries respectively compared to grooms from the lowest
caste households. This lends support to the argument that a strong relationship exists
between hierarchical status and marriage transactions in India.
The coefficient on the distance of marriage migration reveals that the practice of
village exogamy/endogamy has no significant effect on dowries in India. This refutes the
assertion that exogamy is associated with an increase in the size of marital transfers from
brides and their families to grooms and their families.
The marriageable age gender ratio, which is an index of the degree of the mar-
riage squeeze, has received a lot of attention and has been singled out as having a signif-
icant influence on contemporary marriage behavior in India. Though the marriage squeeze
index has a positive sign, indicating that an increase in the number of women relative to
the number of men, in the marriage market causes dowries to go up, it is not significant.
This suggests that the argument that marriage squeeze has played a significant role in the
rise of dowries in India is weak. This result concurs with Edlund (2000) who, in failing to
replicate Rao's (1993) results, found the 'district sex ratio', a measure of the degree of
marriage squeeze employed by Rao, to be insignificant in its impact on dowry.
The coefficient on year of marriage provides the most surprising result. It indi-
cates that, holding bride, groom and household characteristics and other dowry shifter
variables constant, there has been a statistically significant decrease in the amount of real
dowries over time. This contradicts not only a large body of evidence obtained from
ethnographic studies of the Indian marriage market, but also prior analysis of these mar-
kets, with an emphasis on rural south-central India (Rao, 1993). The consensus in the lit-
erature has been that real dowries have increased across India over the last four decades
(Bhat and Halli, 1999; Billig, 1992; Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell, 1983; Epstein, 1973).
Clearly, this is an area that requires further investigation. However, until more precise
regional (urban versus rural), statewide, or national level data on marriage transactions is
available, this result must be interpreted conditional on the observable characteristics of
the sample population.
Finally, it is interesting to note the large and significant regional variations in
dowry payments. Dowries are twenty eight per cent higher in Uttar Pradesh (north India)
than in Karnataka (south India) the omitted category. This is consistent with the ethno-
graphic evidence pointing to the north/south differences in marriage transactions in India
(Dyson and Moore, 1983; Miller, 1980; Srinivas, 1984).
North-South Differences
To isolate the differences between the two regions in terms of how they value
bride and groom characteristics we ran separate regressions for north and south India
(columns 2 and 3 in Table 3).
The results reveal that while the north places a premium on male education, the
groom's age is more valued in the south. Height of the groom has a positive and signifi-
cant impact on net dowry transfer, though slightly more in the north compared to south
India. With respect to the characteristics of the bride, again we find that improved educa-
tional status of women raises the amount of dowry paid in the two regions. Age of the
bride at marriage, however, has no significant impact on monetary payments in the two
regions. Interestingly, the coefficient on bride's height though insignificant for the north
is positive and statistically significant for the south. This suggests that the taller the bride,
the higher the dowry the groom receives in the south. Thus, there appears to be a penalty
associated with being a taller bride in the south. Alternatively, height can be considered as
an indicator of health and it may proxy for the wealth standing of a bride's household.
The groom's household wealth, measured by his father's landholdings, has a p

itive and significant effect on dowry in the north, thus confirming the claims that f
hypergamy is widely practiced in the north (Billig, 1992; Miller, 1981; Srinivas, 1984)
the south, on the other hand, the groom's father's landholdings have a significant neg
effect on the net dowry transfer suggesting that reciprocity is more prevalent amon
propertied groups in the region. Overall it appears that there is a dominant urge to contr
a desirable marriage in the north, one in which the status of the groom and his fam
higher than that of the bride and her family with respect to education, income and we
The influence of bride's father's landholdings on net dowry is insignificant in
north, indicating that dowry does not serve as a pre-mortem inheritance of the bride in
region. The effect of this variable is negative and significant at the ten per cent level in
south. This may be because of the recognition of women's rights to land. The status of
bride and groom households as measured by caste has a positive and significant impac
marriage payments in the two regions. This is consistent with prior research, particu
for the south, which suggests that groups at the top of the hierarchy tend to follow dow
customs, while those at the lower end practice bride price (Tambiah, 1973). However,
find no evidence of bride price payments in the south, irrespective of caste affiliation
Among the other shifter variables, while the coefficient on year of marriage s
gests that doWries have decreased over time in north and south India, distance of mar
migration and marriageable age gender ratio fail to have any significant impact on m
tary transactions in the two regions. We performed a Chow test to test for structural
ferences in the behavior of north and south India with respect to the practice of dow
Results from the test indicate that there are structural differences between the two regi
at a one per cent level of significance. 14
We cannot effectively test the claim that higher dowries in the north can
explained by the region's relatively low female labor force participation. The prima
occupation of women in rural areas is working on the family farm. Though we have in
mation on female labor force participation after marriage, there is no measure of this
able before marriage or at the time marriage transactions are made. Assuming that fe
labor force participation after marriage reflects the norm in society, we regressed this v
able on dowry but found no significant results. Moreover, the inclusion of female
force participation at the time of marriage as an independent variable made no differ
either to the number of statistically significant coefficients or to the size of estimated c
ficients, therefore we dropped this variable from our analysis. 15
CONCLUSIONS
In this article we examine the role of dowries in India and provide a

and institutional rationale for the existence and continued prevalence of th
explain dowries based on institutional factors such as the nature of residen
tance system, kinship organizations, and the tendencies toward egalitariani
cation in the society. Economic factors include personal and household char
the bride and the groom that constitute the relevant 'price' of a match in the marriage mar-
ket. Using data on marriage transactions collected from north and south India, we test to
see if institutional factors, the implicit market model and marriageable age gender ratio
can adequately explain the phenomenon of dowries in India. The theoretical literature sug-
gests that there is a broad north-south dichotomy in marriage transactions in India that is
a result of the different cultural norms, social, economic and demographic factors that
characterize the two regions. We also test this assertion using data from the two regions.
Our results provide no evidence to support the general belief that dowry is a pre-
mortem inheritance of the bride, as neither the bride's father's landholdings nor the per-
centage of daughters in the bride's household have a significant impact on the amount of
marital transfers. In estimating the effect of groom's father's landholdings on the size of
transfers received, our results reveal a tendency towards female hypergamy in the north
and reciprocity among propertied groups in the south. None of the coefficients on the vari-
able measuring the distance of marriage migration are significantly different from zero,
thus suggesting no evidence in favor of the relationship between village exogamy or
endogamy and the size of dowry.
Our results also reveal a strong relationship between hierarchical status (caste)
and the size of transfers from the bride and her family to the groom and his family, as
grooms from upper and middle caste households receive more dowry compared to grooms
from the lowest caste households. Overall, our results support the ethnographic evidence
pointing to the broad north-south dichotomy in marriage transactions in India. While our
results do support the general claim that dowries on average are higher in the north, they
reveal no evidence of bride price in the south. Instead, the data indicate the presence of
lower average dowries and reciprocity among propertied groups in the south.
The marriageable age gender ratio has been singled out by researchers as having
the most influence on the size of monetary transfers and hence contemporary marriage
behavior in India. However, we find that in our study the degree of marriage squeeze has
no statistically significant impact on the magnitude of dowry in India.
The empirical results support the hypothesized role of marital arrangements in
India - that of equalizing differences. Individual bride and groom characteristics on which
compensating price differentials arise include education, age and height. Our results also
indicate regional differences in the valued traits of the bride and groom. While a groom's
education is the prized trait in the north, a groom's age at marriage is of prime importance
in the south followed by his height in the two regions. On the other hand, while a bride is
penalized for her height in the south her education raises the net dowry transfer in the two
regions, relatively more in the south compared to the north. This suggests that more edu-
cated brides compete in a smaller market for grooms as social norms typically require the
groom to be more educated than the bride.
Perhaps, the most surprising result of this study is the negative effect of the year
of marriage in the dowry function. Contrary to popular belief it indicates that holding indi-
vidual and household characteristics constant, real dowries in rural Uttar Pradesh and
Kamataka have decreased over time in our sample. Clearly, more empirical work needs to
be done in this area for both rural and urban India to test for the robustness of our results
Even so, to our knowledge ours is the first empirical study that has found this surprising
result.
ENDNOTES
I Rao (1993) used Rosen's implicit market model to examine the rising price
in India.
2 A good match may be defined as a groom with higher education, greater f

etc.
3 Under the Hindu law reforms of the 1950's, Hindu males continue to own a share of the
family property at birth, while females can now inherit it. However, the interests of
females can be usurped simply by writing a will (see Carroll, 1991).
4There are two main schools of Hindu law, Mitakshara and Dayabhaga. Dayabhaga
applies to Bengal and Assam, while Mitakshara covers the rest of India (see Carroll,
1991).
S Andra Pradesh in 1986 and Tamil Nadu in 1989 amended the Hindu Succession Act to
recognize unmarried daughters (i.e., daughters still unmarried when the act was passed)
as copartners by birth in their own right, giving them claim equal to those of sons in joint
family property, including the right to a share by survivorship (see Agarwal, 1995).
6 We thank the reviewer Dr. Ram Valluru for this comment.
7 In addition dowry may serve as an equalizer for the wage differentials between the bride
and the groom. It is well documented in the literature that women on average earn lower
wages than men. Thus, dowry can be viewed as equalizing the discounted present value
of wage differentials between the bride and groom. We thank the reviewer Dr. Ram
Valluru for this explanation.
8 Similarly, the groom's household maximizes a utility function that includes as argu-
ments a vector of desirable traits of the potential bride and her family, conditional on the
traits of the groom and his household. Formally, the utility function of the groom can be
specified as , where is a vector of consumption goods with unit price. The budget con-
straint is represented by , where is the premarital wealth of the groom.
9 We would like to thank Abusaleh Shariff and B.L. Joshi at NCAER for sharing this data
set with us. The study, 'Poverty, Gender Inequality and Reproductive Choice', was spon-
sored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 140 South Dearbomn Street,
Suite 1100, Chicago, IL 60603-5285. NCAER fielded the questionnaire for the Institute
of Social Studies Trust, East Court, Zone 6, Upper ground floor, India Habitat Center,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi - 110003, to whom this project was sanctioned.
10 For more information on the data set refer to Report on Poverty, Gender Inequality and
Reproductive Choice, Vol. I, II, III [1996]. Delhi: Institute of Social Studies Trust.
11 Households reported amounts both received and paid in cash and in kind at the time of
marriage, including transfers of gold and silver, land, livestock and consumer durables, as
well as details about the year of marriage. The transfers in kind were valued by the inves-
tigators according to prices prevailing during the year of marriage.
12 Note, we use the ratio of women in the 10-19 age group to men in the 15-24 age group
in Uttar Pradesh, and the ratio of women in the 15-24 age group to men in the 20-29 age
group in Karnataka to construct the marriage squeeze index so that it reflects the ages at
which most women and men marry in the two regions. Further, we calculated the marriage
squeeze index from the census of India, as age distribution information was not available
at the district and state level from 1951-1991. In India, more single men emigrate from
rural areas than women. Such emigrants, even in the city, remain members of the rural
marriage market, because the parents who arrange the marriage remain in the countryside.
For this reason, the statistics for larger areas, such as the whole country, may provide bet-
ter measures of the extent of the marriage squeeze.
13 No evidence of severe multicollinearity was found in the data. All of the Variance
Inflation Factors were below 5 and Tolerance below 0.2. The only Pearson correlation
coefficient over 0.7 was observed for age of the bride and the groom.
14 The F Statistic of the Chow is 5.34 and it's F critical value is 2.07 at a one percent level
of significance.
15 An alternative is to use the aggregate labor force participation rates in India for the two
regions. Once again we find the effect of this variable to be insignificant for both regions
and the inclusion/exclusion of this variable has no significant impact on the size of other
estimated coefficients.
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The Institution of Dowry in India: Why It Continues to Prevail

Author(s): Sonia Dalmia and Pareena G. Lawrence

THE INSTITUTION OF DOWRY IN INDIA:

In many traditional societies, some transfer of money, goods and serv

SOCIOECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON DOWRY

Inheritance Laws and Practices

The practice of dowry in India has an extensive history beginning in approxi-

Kinship Organizations: A North-South Perspective

Mode of Production: Economic Contribution of Women Perspective

There also appears to be a broad north-south dichotomy in marriage transactions

marriage transactions is an outcome of sexual division of agricultural labor, as high or low

Social Stratification Perspective

THEORY OF EQUALIZING DIFFERENTIALS

The theoretical literature on marital transactions so far points to the

U=U(G,X;B) U'>O, U"<O (l)

Estimation of the hedonic dowry function requires specifying . This involves

Ln(D) = a + Z/3,Ln(G,) + Xyin(B )+2 i(Ri) + i

Marriage Market Gender Ratio

Table 1: Proportion of Singles and Mean age at Marriage of

Figure 1: Gender Ratio in India

Gender Ratio in India

Source: Census of India 1991

Figure 2: Marriageable Age Gender Ratio.

Marriageable Age Gender Raio

Source: Census of India 1881-1991 and Goyal (1988)

Figure 3: Population Growth Rate in India

Source: Census of India 1991

Retrospective Sample Data

The data on marriage transactions and individual and household characteristics

Table 2: Summary Statistics of the Sample

Table 3: OLS Estimates of the Hedonic Dowry Function

Variable India North South

The groom's household wealth, measured by his father's landholdings, has a p

In this article we examine the role of dowries in India and provide a

2 A good match may be defined as a groom with higher education, greater f

Anderson, S. (2001) 'Why Dowry Payments Declined with Modernisation in

Bhat, P. N. M, and S. A. Halli (1999) 'Demography of Bride Price and Dow

Billig, M. S. (1992) 'The Marriage Squeeze and the Rise of Groomprice in

Miller, B. (1981) The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural

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