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 DOW RY A N D DAUGH T ERS

This book studies the relevance of dowry as a customary practice in Indian

marriages. It examines the historical articulation between traditional cul-
tural texts and modern statutory law to understand how daughters are val-
ued and how dowry as a custom defines this value. The author creates a
conceptual link between modern, medieval and ancient marriage rites that
formulate and embed dowry behaviour and practice within Indian society.
This book also provides a critique of the cultural textual tradition of India
and South Asia. It asserts for the first time that Vedic materialism is at
the core of an adequate understanding of how dowry as wealth comes to
occupy such a central position in the field of marriage.
An important study into the custom and tradition of South Asia, this
book will be indispensable for students and researchers of cultural stud-
ies, women’s studies, gender studies, religion, history, law and South Asian
studies.

Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya, an award-winning film academic, has taught

cinema and creative writing widely. Anwesha has been Assistant Editor of
South Asia Research (SAR), SAGE, and is a graduate of St Xavier’s Col-
lege, where she edited the Bibliodelic (1993–1996). A Dorab Tata (1997)
scholar, her pioneering Masters research at the School of Oriental and Afri-
can Studies (SOAS), University of London, led to her PhD. She is the first
female to be awarded the Research Student Fellowship (RSF) at SOAS. She
has taught at SNDT University, Bombay, and University of Connecticut
(London), where her course “Cinema as an Instrument of Social Change”
exploring human rights, feminism and film proved popular. Anwesha has
book chapters in Contemporary Stardom in Hindi Film, Madhumati,
Janani, and Behind Closed Doors. Co-editor of the biographical collection
Bimal Roy: The Man Who Spoke in Pictures (2017), she is also a published
poet. Living with her actor husband and their four children in East Sussex,
she now runs a small literary and film society.
Anwesha lives with her actor husband and their four children in East
Sussex, where she began an Arts & Crafts initiative the Paper Place in
2011 to support dying creative arts. She also runs a small literary and film
society at the local cinema, converted from the old town library. She is the
third child of Indian Women’s Movement pioneer and activist Rinki Roy
Bhattacharya.
 DOW RY AN D
DAUGH TERS

The Social, Religious and Legal

Dilemma of Denying Dowry

Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya
 First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya
The right of Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Arya-Bhattacharya, Anwesha, author.
Title: Dowry and daughters : the social, religious and legal dilemma
of denying dowry / Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, imprint of
Taylor & Francis Group, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references
and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022049234 (print) | LCCN 2022049235
(ebook) | ISBN 9780367210731 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032460253
(paperback) | ISBN 9780429285202 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dowry—India. | Marriage—India. | Marriage
customs and rites—India. | India—Social life and customs.
Classification: LCC HQ1017 .A79 2023 (print) | LCC HQ1017
(ebook) | DDC 392.5082/0954—dc23/eng/20221013
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049234
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049235

ISBN: 978-0-367-21073-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-46025-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-28520-2 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429285202
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Figure 1 Warli Etching, “Circle of Solidarity”, white paint on brown paper.
̣
Artist: Jiyasomāmse.
Photograph: Sagar Arya.
Source: Arya Private Collection.
 CON T EN TS

List of figures ix
List of tables xi
Foreword xiii
Preface xvii
Acknowledgements xxi
Abbreviations xxiii

Introduction: Dowry exists 1

1 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness 9

2 Text and context 21

3 What is “good custom” or sadācāra? 35

4 Legal texts, religious rites and social traditions 58

5 The phantom of dowry in context and text 93

6 Ancient marriage expectations and the Ṛgveda 117

7 Dowry in ancient marriage arrangements 134

8 Anti-dowry law: A misguided strategy 183

9 Dowry as sadācāra becomes dharma 200

Bibliography 207
Index 229

vii
 FIGU R ES

1 Warli Etching, “Circle of Solidarity”, white paint on

̣
brown paper. Artist: Jiyasomāmse v
1.1 Conceptual Model: the three theories guiding this thesis 13
4.1 The anthropological field of law, exhibiting three
influences on Hindu marriage 66
̣ and Dharma
4.2 Circle of solidarity in terms of Rta 68
4.3 Hindu marriage in the Indian cosmic universe a cording to
Menski’s doctoral research (1984) 69
4.4 Dowry as the centre of the dharmic universe 71
7.1 Diachronic synchronic 138
2 Past and present “Cosmic and chaotic solidarity”. Artist:
Ramesh Lakshman Hengadi 205

ix
 TABLES

2.1 Hindu Literature – Hindu Law: Time Chart 23

2.2 Tentative Chronological Table 24

xi
 FOR EWOR D

Once upon a time in the mid-1990s, Annual Conferences on Dowry and

Bride-Burning were conducted at Harvard in 1995 and 1996 and at SOAS,
University of London, in 1997. An edited book documented and discussed
these activities (Menski, 1998, 1999), we had an active Students Against
Dowry Group at SOAS (Menski, 1999: vi) and later another Dowry Con-
ference was held in India, too. Several of my students wrote dissertations
and doctoral theses on the subject, while we saw the Indian Supreme
Court becoming tired of hearing one dowry-related case after the other.
In State of Himachal Pradesh v. Nikku Ram, AIR 1996 SC 67, the judges
proclaimed their disgust and anguish at the very start of the judgement:
“Dowry, dowry and dowry!” Dowry and gendered violence were clearly
entangled in various ways, but how?
At the time, our esteemed SOAS colleague, the late Julia Leslie (1999:
28), observed that the discourses about dowry were connected most prom-
inently to violence against women in the name of dowry, while inheritance
rights were a crucially pertinent issue too and ought to be strengthened
to avoid dowry-related problems (Leslie, 1999: 35). We also began to
understand however that somehow dowry was there to stay, as important
activists like Madhu Kishwar had earlier also concluded, stopping their
anti-dowry boycotts.
I argued at the time that dealing with dowry responsibly was basically a
matter of individual conscience (Menski, 1999: 60), operationalised at the
level of the family. Later I learnt through fieldwork among “normal” people
who had made dowry arrangements but were leading happy married lives
that they were talking about “reasonable dowry”, reflecting a balanced,
careful approach that does not damage anyone, avoiding the traps and pit-
falls of excessive expectations and exaggerated claims. Dowry, therefore,
does not have to turn into something toxic; it can be “good dowry”, which
will benefit the family and most probably the woman too. I knew this from
my own mother, who had received a certain small share of family furniture
and useful items, about which she was proud and happy all her life. She
was a daughter who certainly did not get an equal share of inheritance

xiii
 Foreword

compared to her brother, but that set of unequal arrangements itself was
part of custom, which everyone accepted.
Maybe, thus, something went wrong in postcolonial India when adver-
sarial approaches to debating the “dowry problem” became part of an
extended gender war, pitting “tradition” against “modernity”, modern
laws seeking to outlaw dowry against “custom”, and of course, men against
women. Dowry activists conveniently ignored that simplistic visions of gen-
dered patterns of family strategies could not be sensibly maintained, as one
day a family were receivers of a bride and another day the same people were
the bride-givers. A more integrated, holistic perspective seemed to recom-
mend itself, while the phenomenon of dowry itself refused to be outlawed.
In fact, new customs developed in various parts and classes of India as
a kind of bricolage, reconstructed out of earlier textual and non-textual
patterns of expectations, combined with current desires and contempo-
rary practical needs. When critical social studies scholars today encourage
us to actively contemporanise and thereby avoid “a negative dialectics of
despair” while combining theory and practice in the Anthropocene (Rajan,
2017: 72), postcolonial theorising develops and reflects a maturity that was
earlier lacking (Banerjee et al., 2016: 43).
Anwesha began her doctoral thesis on the dowry issue a few years after
our late twentieth-century struggles with this topic in 2002. She took time
to complete her work, as she was also raising a young family during the
same period. Learning now for herself what it meant to have a daughter,
not merely to be one, may have contributed to her own conviction that
dowry was there to stay. Yes, it seemed to have ancient roots, being part of
texts, clearly since faraway times, but that in itself was no reason to deny
its contemporary validity. In view of growing realisation that we act as bri-
colateurs of contemporary and more recent customs, Anwesha’s work too
acknowledged that dowry practices did not necessarily lead to the death
of daughters, brides and married women. Given that any attempts to out-
law the practice were clearly symbolic and full of rhetoric, she argued that
dowry continues to be part of people’s customary norms (sadācāra) not
only among Hindus and not only in India. We are now told that this means
we participate in the corruptions of human life (Rajan, 2020), but I shall
leave Anwesha to address that.
Giving your daughter all kinds of things that might fall under the wide
definitional umbrella of dowry thus turned out to be the right thing to do,
always provided that it was properly balanced. For, in certain situations,
there could still be dowry-related violence, which would most likely then
tell us more about interpersonal relationship struggles and dark desires to
cause trouble to “the other” rather than reasonable enjoyment of what one
got and should be able to share for mutual enjoyment.
Picking up the threads of her earlier work now, Anwesha indicates a fur-
ther effort to contemporanise her own understanding of the conundrum of

xiv
 Foreword

dowry and promises to provide a deeper appreciation of what it means to

be connected as humans within the folds of a loving family. In this spirit,
I welcome her focus on dowry and daughters, as it continues to pay
attention to people as gendered individuals rather than pursuing gender
politics.
More recently, the focus in writing on Indian family laws and life has
switched away from dowry and has notably fallen more on gendered polit-
icisation of the Uniform Civil Code debate in India. Together with the
closely related issue of post-divorce maintenance, specifically for Muslim
wives following the world-famous case of Shah Bano (Mohd. Ahmed Khan
v. Shah Bano, AIR 1985 SC 945), and subsequent legislation, the much-
misunderstood Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act,
1986, a prominent issue for many commentators, has become the extent
of state involvement in people’s daily lives. This is deemed to be transfor-
mational, while people as socio-religious beings are not trusted to come up
with reasonable socio-legal balances.
However, in postcolonial, postmodern theory and practice, we see that
such often robust state involvement may involve highly significant risks and
precarious drawbacks, which common citizens need to be aware about.
When India, pushed by anti-dowry activists, passed an amendment in
1983, known as section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, to allow
women to complain against their in-laws regarding dowry-related violence,
this was seen as a victory for gender justice. However, in Sushil Kumar
Sharma v. Union of India, AIR 2005 SC 3100, the Supreme Court of India
came down very hard on s. 498-A, saying that although it was designed as a
shield to protect women, it has instead been used as an “assassin’s weapon”
with which one can unleash “legal terrorism”. This supposedly beneficial
law had clearly been abused, not just in this case.
If the state’s law, unwilling to accept what reasonable custom and a wider
contextualised analysis of socio-legal processes might perceive as quite
appropriate, rushes ahead with heavy guns of criminal law, further precari-
ties and sufferings are likely to be caused. Sadly, the lessons of this dilemma
of section 498-A of the IPC have not been learnt, as India has recently com-
mitted the same error through engineering the promulgation of the Mus-
lim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019. Following hard
on the heels of the heavily manipulated case of Shayara Bano v. Union of
India [2017] 9 SCC 1, regarding the legality or otherwise of the triple talaq
among Muslims, there has been much hyped-up focus on “the trouble with
Muslim divorces”. Tellingly, the 2019 Act is already being misused by some
women to criminalise their former husbands and their families, while we
hear hardly anything about dowry. The deliberate silences about India’s
quite radically pro-women post-divorce maintenance provisions also seem
to put a shroud of silence over dowry and dower arrangements among
Indian Muslims.

xv
 Foreword

Picking up the threads of her doctoral study, Anwesha now reiterates that
dowry is manifestly still part of marital expectations, and makes sense in
many ways, but also needs to be intelligently managed. It is obvious that,
meanwhile, expectations have become inflated, while media hypes and big
showy weddings reflect excessive consumerism. Yet this book still finds
that, as we saw also in the mid-1990s, while we may be unable to pinpoint
precisely what “dowry” is and what it is not, it remains a part of “the
Indian way”, which is, in reality, a whole cluster of various Indian ways and
South Asian practices.
If today’s mothers and daughters want to ensure a good deal out of
these customary bricolages and are genuinely looking for well-balanced
approaches to this tricky conundrum, they will do well to inform them-
selves about what may or may not be reasonable and appropriate regarding
dowry expectations and arrangements. Anwesha’s book is much more than
a “How-To-Arrange-A-Dowry” guidebook or bricolage; it may be seen as
a new form, a postcolonial avatār, of femiśāstra.

Werner Menski
Emeritus Professor of South Asian Laws,
SOAS, University of London, London, UK

References
Banerjee, P., Nigam, A. & and Pandey, R. (2016, September 10) ‘The Work of The-
ory. Thinking across Traditions’, Economic & Political Weekly, 51(37): 42–50.
Leslie, J. (1999) ‘Dowry, “Dowry Deaths” and Violence against Women: A Jour-
ney of Discovery’. In W. Menski (ed.) South Asians and the Dowry Problem
(pp. 21–35). New Delhi: Vistaar.
Menski, W. (ed.) (1998) South Asians and the Dowry Problem. Stoke-on-Trent:
Trentham Books.
Menski, W. (ed.) (1999) South Asians and the Dowry Problem. New Delhi: Vistaar.
Rajan, C. S. (2017, April 8) ‘Practising Theory in the Anthropocene. A Postcolonial
Quest for Reliable Knowledge’, Economic & Political Weekly, 52(14): 72–74.
Rajan, C. S. (2020) A Social Theory of Corruption: Notes from the Indian Subcon-
tinent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

xvi
 PR EFACE

A daughter is another’s wealth.

Ancient Indian words, Anonymous

A son is a son till he gets a wife

a daughter is a daughter all her life.
Old common law belief, England

This preoccupation of a girl being the wealth of a family is what began the
research that has led to the exposition laid out in this book. If daughters
and dowries are linked by the umbilicus of wealth, who is more valued?
The girl or the gold she brings?
Where does a daughter really belong? In Game of Thrones,1 a nostalgic
traveling soldier hears his wife has given birth to their baby back home.
Being asked if he prefers a boy or girl, he says: “everyone knows girls look
after their Papas…boys just go off to fight in others wars”. This sentiment
acknowledges the place of a girl at the heart of her natal family in a made
up medieval world. It is just this sort of saying or rather the lack of it in
India while I was growing up that forced me to question my status as a girl
child. Who did I really belong to? The home I was born into? Or, was it the
household I would marry into?
In 2022, National Daughters’ Day, 22 September, was instituted to stress
the need to underpin a girl’s status within her own family in the UK and the
USA. Surely, the fact that this needs underlining is symptomatic of broken
attitudes that we Indian daughters have always lived with. Yes, it is true, in
India young girls grow up learning to accept the truth that we are paraya
dhan, ‘another’s wealth’. In some communities, a girl’s given name, not just
her surname, may be taken from her on marriage. She is often renamed
with an astrologically, phonetically matched name to her husband. This
year, I turned 48. It is a long time to feel like you don’t belong.
What will I teach my 13-year-old girl? India is by no means alone in treat-
ing its daughters as different. Our golden age rhetoric hails women as god-
desses. The reality reflects nothing of the sort. When I was twelve, during a

xvii
 Preface

class discussion on history, one sentence stood out: In ancient Vedic times,
women and men had equal status. At breakfast, I would often read my
father’s newspaper over his shoulder. The headlines regularly screeched like
badly oiled bike wheels, “Another Bride Burned”. 2
How do 3,000 years undo equality? Surely, modernism meant women
being equal to men? I didn’t understand. Most of my student life I sought
what I thought would be a straightforward answer to this question of
equality. And found none.
What I found instead were an amazing range of history teachers and one
literature tutor who made me understand how to find appropriate tools
to unearth and then unpick the past. I stared at the tangle of history and
realised that to clear the web of words to get to the bare rock face of what
the Indian past was about was the only way. Miss Hughes and Miss Gwen
Maclure at St. Hilda’s, Ooty, encouraged my almost boyish rebellion. Mrs
Inamdar at A. F. Petit, Bombay, and Mrs Nadig at Learners’ Academy and
then Miss Kamat at Sophia College all enabled my brain to continue the
stream of questions. I was so fortunate that not one of these wonderful
women shut me down. None said that it was pointless. Alongside, my brave
and rebellious mother by her deeds showed me to always question why
rather than to do and die. Wendy Doniger, whose kind permission I have to
use her Sanskrit translations, inspired me to strike out and find the feminist
side to our ancient verses. As a student of Julia Leslie, I met professor Doni-
ger in my Masters year at SOAS. It was the time the silly Hindu brigade
threw eggs at her. I was one of the Indian girls who stood up to them.
Finally, I found a guru at SOAS, under whose tutelage I came to fully
frame the first question I needed to find an answer to: What is the value of
daughters?
Julia Leslie was teaching a Masters charting Orthodoxy and its attitude
to women in India. I felt like I had come home. With her, in 1998, I set up
the Gender and Religions Research (GRR) Centre at the School of Orien-
tal and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She guided me to
her student Werner Menski. His enabling tutelage helped set to rest the
horrible feeling that daughters just don’t matter; that we can never belong.
On Doniger’s wide shoulders, I stand making my own contribution to an
ongoing battle.
The stormy afternoon my father died, Tata Trusts called inviting me to
attend their J N Tata International Scholarship interview. I had to post-
pone not just the interview, but also my unconditional acceptance to SOAS.
I was furious with my father for dying; we had just begun to talk about
̣
our old family ties to the ancient Rgveda manuscripts. He explained how
Bhatt-Acharya (my maiden surname) meant “teachers acharya of the priests
bhatt”. I wanted so much more. But my direct link to my own past was gone.
However, what happened in the days that followed Baba’s death changed
everything.

xviii
 Preface

My brother could not make the journey back in time from Italy to India
to perform his duty-bound last rites for our father. My sister was already
married. Her name change implied she no longer “belonged” to our family
clan. Who would consign Baba to the purifying flames? Our elder cousin
Amitda hurriedly leafed through the panchang (clan charter and guide-
book) to find a solution to the cremation of a man with an absentee son. So
many solutions exist in these old writings, covering every context.
My father lay there, unable to join the discussion, as he would have loved
to. He looked abandoned, by history, by our family.
As the extended family clustered around my father’s bier, I watched my
sister break down. She was not allowed to light his pyre. Across noisy
chanting from others’ pyres, our cousin Amitda decisively clutched my
shoulder. He pronounced me putrika-putri the son-like-daughter. I had
never heard of such a thing. I was given the honour of performing mukh-
agni for Baba, to literally set his mouth (mukh) aflame (agni) to lift the soul
into the wind, to symbolically set him adrift from the body on the bier.
Didi’s kohl-smeared eyes were unbearable. I grabbed her hand. Together,
two daughters as one, we stumbled around our Baba three times. Amitda
was so terrified we had broken with ancient rites, he performed it all again.
How I dissociated emotionally from the events of that drenched after-
noon I have no idea. I memorised each action. What was in that rough-
edged old book? How was I different now? Did my actual status change
when I was appointed the son-like-daughter? It felt more part of an anthro-
pological “participant-observer” project. Had I not married a man I love,
whose surname I also happen to love, I could have claimed the name pref-
erence clause provided by the old texts; the additional role of keeping my
father’s surname alive, as only a putrika-putri is allowed. One of our three
sons could officially keep my father’s surname.
Suddenly, the girl who wanted so much to be equal to her brother was
granted her wish.
But what I could not shrug off was the disdain I felt 13 days later when
my brother finally returned. I was set aside. The “real” son was back. In his
defence, my brother attempted to object.
This sort of “son-preference” twists our society, particularly in India
but also in Indian communities abroad. Many academic observers sadly
surmise this is common in global cultures, where patriarchal perspectives
persist. The SOAS GRR Conference in Delhi (2003) I convened found repe-
titious stories of holding girls back from reaching their full potential.
Although fortunate in so many ways to be the daughter of rebellious,
liberal parents, I could no longer question my dead father. Together with
Professor Menski and Julia Leslie, I began to unhook a past tangled in our
̣
plural Indian context. The Rgveda, Book X, hymn 85, places human mar-
riage at the centre of the Vedic universe. Translating these verses during my
Masters (1998) in search of the first mention of dowry, I found something.

xix
 Preface

The long gone Vedic composers set as the opening sequence for the human
marriage, a magical union between celestial beings.
Skewed global statistics attest the disempowered status of women. The
fact remains that according to UN data, most women will be killed in their
own household, murdered by current or previous partners.3 Within mur-
der-suicides involving an intimate partner, 94% of the victims are women.4
This worldwide statistic begs the question: How do women own and con-
trol our own destiny? The medieval author Manu is believed to have per-
petuated the Indian ideal that a girl belongs, like a piece of property, first to
her father, then to her husband and finally to her son. All Indian men know
this. This must change.
I am finally tired of feeling ashamed as an Indian daughter. The shame
of being unequal. The extraordinarily simple saying quoted above is one I
recently heard in England where I now live. Egalitarianism in the country of
my birth, however, particularly in terms of gender equality, is an accepted
myth. We are not the wealth of the family we are born into, we only briefly
belong. Our permanent place is elsewhere. Dowry represents this.
So I will steal the old English saying. I empower me to declare, for all
daughters anywhere and everywhere: “A daughter is a daughter all her life”.

Notes
1 Episode 1, Series Seven, HBO (2017).
2 Roop Kanwar was forced to commit Sati on 4 September 1987 (see article:
latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-23-mn-15923). The case continues 32
years on. See also https://hindustantimes.com/jaipur/32-years-on-rajasthan-
s-roop-kanwar-case-drags-on-in-court/story-WWijRe51LAufn8gS9nCeFO.
html.
3 The latest UN figures show that 137 women across the world are killed every
day by a partner or member of their own family—a total of 50,000 women a
year murdered by people they know and should be able to trust; weforum.org
(2017).
4 ncadv.org (National Coalition against Domestic Violence, USA).

xx
 ACKNOW LEDGEM EN TS

A work that has taken longer than anticipated is finally complete, due
mainly to the support and extraordinary efforts of several individuals.
The kernel for this study was uncovered during my Master’s year at the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1998–1999 under the
irreplaceable guidance of two Guru-tutors: Dr Julia Leslie and Professor
Werner Menski. I was encouraged and enabled by their strong support to
secure SOAS’s RSF in early 2002. I began this interdisciplinary PhD study
with the guiding principles from the Study of Religions under Dr Leslie
and that of Hindu legal concepts and issues pertaining to global ideas of
law-making under Professor Menski. The sudden and irrevocable loss of
Dr Leslie, besides other difficult personal circumstances, has made the
completion of this book and the associated research work an unenviable
process.
I am grateful to the School of Oriental and African Studies’ (SOAS)
Research Student Fellowship (RSF), which made it possible to undertake
this research in the first place. Deep gratitude to Professor Roger Ballard
for his incisive comments on dharma with a very small “d”. Further, sincere
appreciation to Dr Caroline Osella for her guidance in making this work
more thorough. Finally, to Shoma Choudhury and Anvitaa Bajaj at Rout-
ledge for their patience in the final process of putting these pages to print.
Among dear friends, Dr Jeremy Lind who has from the very first draft
report to this final finished product offered sound editorial input and
incomparable friendship.
Grateful thanks to my darling sister Dr Sukanya Sengupta for her
immense support. My grandmother, Mimma, who lived through a world
that did not question things, but made me ask why. Further, to my young
family: Azaan Sikander, our youngest, who patiently watched the final edit-
ing, letting me type as he refused sleep; Suhaan, for allowing me time away
from learning to crawl with him; to Sanaaya, my wonder girl, for inspir-
ing me with her bubbling determination; and to Ayaan, our first boy, for

xxi
 Acknowledgements

making laughing easy whenever it was hard. Particularly my life partner

Sagar, who stood shouldering immense sacrifice, who stayed by my side
striving through staggering sleeplessness to edge me closer to this achieve-
ment. To you I cannot acknowledge my gratitude enough.

Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya
East Sussex
September 2022

xxii
 ABBR EV I AT IONS

AiĀr Aitareya Āranyaka

AIR All India Reporter
ĀpDS Āpastambha Dharmaśāstra
ĀpGS ̣
Āpastambha Grhyasūtra
ĀśGS ̣
Āśvalayana Grhyasūtra
AV Atharvaveda
BDS Baudhayana-Dharmasūtra
DPA Dowry Prohibition Act (1961) including all the 1980s
amendments
DPR Dowry Prohibition (Maintenance of List of Presents to Bride &
Bridegroom) Rules, 1985, including all its amendments
DVA Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005)
DVR Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Rules (2006)
GDS Gautama Dharmaśāstra
HDŚ History of the Dharmaśāstra
HMA Hindu Marriage Act (1955)
IPC Indian Penal Code (1861)
JB Jaminīya-Brahmana
JGS ̣
Jamini-Grhyasūtra
KāthGS ̣
Kāthaka Grhyasūtra
MBh Mahābhārata
MDŚ Mānava Dharma-Śāstra
MS Manu Smrtị
R Rāmāyanạ
RṾ R g̣ Veda
SC Supreme Court of India
VaikhGS Vaikhānasasmārtasūtram
VaikhŚS Vaikhānasa-Śrautasūtram
YājñSmr ̣ Yājñavalkya Smrtị
VJI Vanger Jātiya Itihāsa
VS Visnụ Smrtị
SMA Special Marriage Act (1954)

xxiii
 I N TRODUCT ION
Dowry exists

A 2021 World Bank study that examined 40,000 marriages

in rural India between 1960 and 2008 found that dowry was
paid in 95 per cent of the marriages…1

Dowry exists. More than six decades after being outlawed, the custom of
dowry appears to outweigh law. Why? Indian marriages are inextricably
linked to this customary marriage payment. The bride’s family gives dowry
at the time of the wedding, but the gift-giving is more an expectation, which
begins way before; sometimes, even at the time of marriage negotiations.
However, there is little agreement about exactly when these gifts should
begin to be given and when they should stop. Peculiar to Indian marriages
at home and abroad, dowry has become linked to violence and death.
In June 2022, three sisters jumped to their deaths, leaving a suicide text
on WhatsApp blaming dowry harassment. This has brought dowry back
onto the social agenda, after it fell out of discussion. 2 This book asks the
question about how daughters are valued and how dowry as a custom
defines this value.
The persistence of dowry as a problem is borne out by regular reportage
in news media. The most shocking statistic being that at least 20 women die
daily as a direct result of dowry demands. These demands continue to plague
families, who across India and the Diaspora insist on following custom rather
than paying heed to law. This book asks the crucial question: Is custom more
important than law when addressing the area of marriage? Evidently, yes.
Though declared unlawful in 1961, dowry is still here, larger than law.
Marriages occupy the realm of the sacred. The laws that govern Indian
Hindu marriage3 are a set of unwritten yet prescriptive codes found in
the cultural texts. The very act of getting married is an emulation of the
divine first wedding described in the ancient marriage hymn: Suryasukta
̣
from the Rgveda, often considered the first and oldest Veda. The marriage
between Soma, the Moon, and Suryaa, the daughter of Surya the sun god,
is what every mortal marriage aspires to emulate. So, do the gods believe

D OI : 10.4324 / 978 0 42 92852 02 -1 1

 Introduction

that giving gold is good? Or is the gift of the girl enough? The intent of this
introductory chapter is to summarise the main core argument as set out in
this book discussing dowry as a valid dilemma facing daughters.

Background of the dowry dilemma

Where did this dowry dilemma begin in academic terms? To give or not
to give.
This book states what practice at ground level confirms, namely that the
Dowry Prohibition Act (DPA), the statute of 1961 (amended in the 1980s),
is mere symbolic legislation. There is unanimous agreement that the law
is “toothless”. The only academic study (Oldenburg, 2002), linking tradi-
tional and modern forms of dowry practice, was released almost two dec-
ades ago. My doctoral work suggests, as Derrett (1984) and Dumont (1959)
prophesised, dowry is very much part of the cultural textual tradition of
India and South Asia and has been from its earliest inception. Professor
Witzel’s (1995) claim of “little dowry and no sati” in the Vedic context was
taken up and considered through my unpublished Masters work (1999),
and it is confirmed here for the first time that dowry has clear, tangible
̣
Rgvedic roots. Clearly, therefore, dowry as a customary marriage practice
needs urgent re-examination through tradition and in the form of text.
When it began, was dowry considered “good”? Was the beginning a
wonderful moment of symbolic simplicity? The gift of the girl, pure and
simple? Gifts may be pure, they are however never simple. They involve
exchange, and exchange bestows both giver and taker with an obligation:
to continue the cycle of gift-giving and receiving to keep communities cohe-
sive and carefully linked to the cosmos, to avoid the human world crum-
bling into chaos. Dowry is crucial to holding Vedic society together in a
harmonic linking of groups through marriage. Marriage in India is never
seen as a bond between just two people. It is the cementing of social ties.
The survival of Indian society depends on its reliance on this intricately
interwoven custom of dowry. Good marriages hold up good society. Dowry
is inherently integral to what is considered a good marriage, as we will see.
Marriages in India, both arranged and love matches, are considered a
religious and social responsibility to be presided over by parents, their peers
and elders. Historically, since 1961 however, dowry creates a dilemma in the
minds of both sets of parents. Whether to give a dowry, how much to give,
when to give, if to give at all? How much to ask, when to ask or whether to
ask for a dowry at all? Both sets of parents have been criminalised by the
DPA (1980s), but the threat of state law seems less important to those who
insist that they cannot send a girl to her new home empty-handed.
This dilemma is often a result of the social burden and expectations
linked to making a good match and may arise at any stage of the mar-
riage negotiation process. The weight of this social expectation is largely

2
 Introduction

governed by an amorphous socio-religious tradition, most often thought

to be found in an ancient oral belief system or the śāstra. The pressure to
pay rests on the shoulders of the father of the bride and her kin group.4
Dowry becomes problematic mostly when there are ongoing demands for
additional financial and other gifts, tragically leading to dowry violence
and deaths. This ongoing social dilemma becomes a serious legal issue
because dowry in modern terms is outlawed by the State. It is therefore a
problem with social, religious and legal dimensions with real-world impli-
cations. The main dilemma of dowry-giving and taking involves daugh-
ters, and this is where this book picks up two questions linked by being
a girl:

Who do daughters belong to?

Who does a dowry belong to?

That all across India dowry has been problematic enough to occupy the
judiciary and the social justice network and intelligentsia is not in question.
In fact, in spite of a deeply debated prohibitive statute, the DPA (1961),
dowry practice in India and across Indian communities continues virtually
unchecked. My doctoral thesis asked: Why?
The answer appears in the smoke trail of expectations surrounding mar-
riage, within which dowry as a custom operates. Marriages occupy the
sacred realm and are, therefore, governed more by custom than by book
law, as this research will show.

Ideal marriage and a nameless custom

The most curious fact about dowry as a custom is that it has no uniformly
accepted word definition in Sanskrit or any modern Indian language.
Examining the actual wording of the Suryasukta chant identifies the devel-
opment of dowry into an ideal custom. My search for expectations of
dowry in marriage, what we might consider the conceptual core of this
̣
research project, led to my translating the words of the Rgvedic marriage
chant from Sanskrit to English. I found not one word for dowry in the
Suryasukta. 5 Neither is there one Sanskrit term for it, even as an echo in all
those languages that have sprung from Sanskrit as the parent. In search for
the “len-den” or taking and giving,6 my research turned up a smoke trail
of expectations layered across the literature and various regional manifes-
tations of dowry practice. Dowry behaviour exists in every community in
some shape. We know this. Despite being such a resilient custom, it has no
Sanskrit name? We have more than 400 living languages on the subconti-
nent.7 Still, it remains nameless, except for the English word we use widely:
dowry. It is almost as if it is hidden, unacknowledged, outside cultural
context for a purpose. To hide. In the course of this book, the apparent

3
 Introduction

troublesomeness of terminologies is discussed, because it is relevant to the

charting of the essential core arguments (Chapter 8).
Dowry expectations, this book demonstrates (Chapter 5), are woven
into the very fabric of the most highly emulated of all ancient marriage
forms: the Brahma marriage as described by the ancient Indian cultural
texts. That said, myriad social practices concerning dowry and gift-giving
remain in existence. Importantly, these social practices are most prominent
in the variation of their practice across the Indian subcontinent and now in
the Diaspora. Though there is almost no commonality in the way dowry
behaviour is practiced across various Indian communities, it is practiced
nonetheless. So how does the argument address this apparently nameless,
variant social behaviour? Clearly, a vast anthropological study is unwieldy
and even impractical, given a single researcher’s limited resources.
Although my doctoral work (SOAS 2002–2013) is not built on anthro-
pological fieldwork, it focused instead on these smoke trails of expec-
tations in the texts or the largely invisible links between ancient texts
and modern dowry practice. These expectations, though not spelled out
in the texts, have been passed down for generations. In terms of dowry
behaviour, an entire belief system has grown around thinking that specific
guidelines exist in textual form, which therefore adds social sanction.
The “highest” form of marriage that has been encoded as the official
Hindu marriage, the Brahma, has been enshrined by the positivist state
law into the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) (1955). This, it is expected,
will be followed by all those marrying officially under Hindu rites.8 This
book argues that this idealised and pure marriage form, Brahma, con-
tains within it the sanction of dowry.
Weaving traditional norms into state legislative principles is not uncom-
mon in the Indian context. The DPA (1961) was instituted only six years
after codifying the Brahma form as the official Hindu marriage. Strangely,
allowing the symbolic sum of Rs. 2,000 (extortionate for some, paltry for
many), which was upgraded to Rs. 5,000 later, defeats the very purpose of
the statute. Including any sum of money proves the DPA more an educative
tool rather than a piece of applicable law-making. The DPA proves to be
symbolic, even myopic legislation.9
In terms of dowry-related decision-making at ground level, the collo-
quial Hindi term rassam or reshum is critical to observe as it is linked to
a local belief in tradition. There is a clear directive that this comes from
local, family-based, community-influenced behaviour patterns, inscripted
into society through repetition for a long period of time. Local custom and
tradition, in fact, have much more bearing than becomes apparent from a
cursory reading of Hindu culture and society. In this sense, in this book
the analysis will focus on the relevance of sadācāra as dharma with a very
small “d” (Chapter 9), as a source of ascertaining the right thing to do when
it concerns dowry behaviour.

4
 Introduction

Briefly, the argument here links the ancient model for marriage laid out
̣
in the Rgveda to what is envisioned in modern law. Specifically, in chant
RVX.85, Brahma marriage is linked to the modern vision of marriage as
enshrined in the HMA (1955). This book also comments on similar trends
the official perception of “tradition” is seen to take. It will also clarify
that social practice may be something quite different from “tradition”,
as laid out in the texts. Throughout this book, the role of book law and
the vital importance given to following positivist notions of book law are
considered.
I also examine the idea that these books have, at least partly, been created
by tradition in themselves. Therefore, the crux of the argument here high-
lights that dowry as a part of Indian Hindu marriage has always existed,
and that it grew and evolved, as did society around it. Conspicuous con-
sumption and middle-class morality today (Saavala, 2010) are not enough
to explain away the depth to which dowry is embedded within the tradi-
tional practices of many disparate and similar communities across India
and in the Diaspora.

Conclusion
Therefore, dowry, according to this book and demonstrably from numerous
social examples, cannot be easily removed, let alone expunged by legislative
fiat, from Indian marriage or society. Dowry refuses to be made illegiti-
mate. The primary reason for this is manifestly the strong link of dowry
with auspiciousness and gift-giving, which is considered highly powerful in
relation to clan rank transformation and maintenance, in the garb of hyper-
gamy (Chapter 4). So, dowry is written into South Asian societies and into
the very fabric of the statute that claims to ban it. It is clearly present within
ancient norms of marriage and is evident in medieval and finally in modern
marriage practice. To whatever extent, a girl is rarely married without the
expectation of dowry and the giving of traditionally acceptable gifts.
Highlighting these trends, the research here clearly points out that, with-
out turning into a predominantly law-centred argument, banning dowry
has in the main been a myopic failure on the part of our modern Indian
administration. Dowry is a classic interdisciplinary Area Studies phenom-
enon, which cannot be studied in a mono-dimensional way. The unsatis-
factory development of Indian legal studies, however, has prevented proper
analysis of such issues and has led to propagandistic handling of the theme
by many participants, some of whom (most evidently Madhu Kishwar) have
come to realise that banning dowry outright is not the way forward anyway.
There needs to be a fresh approach, both academically and legislatively,
which will take into account the auspiciousness of the gift of a girl and
what should clearly be construed as her part in the wealth accompanying
her into the new marital home.

5
 Introduction

The primary aim of my doctoral research was to examine the historical

articulation between traditional cultural texts and modern statutory
law (another form of text) indicating the crucial relevance of dowry as
a customary practice to Indian marriage past and present. The central
focus here is that dowry is, has been and continues to be a socially sanc-
tioned (and for those who can afford it) necessary part of Hindu, even
Indian, marriage which is deemed “right” and desirable good custom or
sadācāra (good social norm). Glenn (2004: 298) notes that the notion of
law, which did not appear to be contained in the books or verses of the
Vedas, needed to be gathered “from somewhere”. He rightly assumes
that “Local tradition, of the virtuous” or sadācāra is where a researcher
may find this.
Tradition, this book argues, is to some extent text; maybe oral/non-
textual but nonetheless a script. Therefore, the notion of an inscription in
society of given behaviours during the acting out of the give and take of
dowry is almost inscribed onto the community enacting the dowry, based
on their collective memory of the behaviour in similar circumstances of
their family or peers in the past and present. This book will argue that
texts can, to some extent, be seen as compilations of idealised traditions.
In tackling dowry, the initial difficulty is that this custom is never clearly
named or admitted in the traditional cultural texts.
My research sought, therefore, expectations within the literature, which
give away the socio-cultural reality of dowry at much earlier stages of the
literature than most academic research so far has suggested.
Few women would like to enter their marital homes unaccompanied
by trousseaus. Therefore, dowry is and has been a custom highlighted as
sadācāra in the perception of people and continues despite legal and moral
bans. This is the chief assertion of my book, and herein lies its originality:
that dowry as practice may not be “bad”, it is the extortionate demands
that make it go bad. It is complex.
My argument is that dowry and dowry-related practices, both during
and after marriage, are governed by fluid rules operating within the broad
jurisdiction of custom. This gives them the force of tradition and links them
with unwritten sanctions should there be any abrogation.
The intent of my work for the past 20 years and its conceptual pull has
been to redress this lacuna by creating a convivial conceptual link between
modern, medieval and ancient marriage rites that formulate and embed
dowry behaviour and practice within Indian society, past and present.
Mine is neither a legal nor an economic thesis, but it operates within the
area of law-making to understand an economically charged custom.
The dowry dilemma remains a pertinent one, with roots in an ancient
past, needing to be unravelled to be better understood. In Chapter 7, this
book argues that, in fact, Vedic materialism is at the core of an adequate
understanding of how dowry as wealth comes to occupy such a central

6
 Introduction

position in the field of marriage, past and present. These ideas may cause
great chagrin and concern to those who see Vedic Literature in purely mys-
tical or spiritual terms. So now what we need to engage with here is to find
how dowry and daughters have been bound traditionally by marriage.
Ultimately, it comes down to the position of women in our society. We
have none. Gauging by the rapid march of post-postmodernity, it is embar-
rassing to admit that Indian women10 do not own, operate or control our
own body image, let alone intimate spaces that we inhabit daily. Deep-
rooted patriarchy exercises control over every aspect of our existence. The
existence of dowry and all the problems it breeds is proof that daughters
continue to be seen and treated as property.
In the light of the shocking events of 2012 (Delhi Crime, Series 1, 2019,
Amazon Prime),11 the publication of this material has become preciously
more pertinent. Daughters need our value to be reappraised, not in mone-
tary terms, but in terms of life.

Notes
1 https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/why-laws-have-failed-to-tackle-
dowry-deaths-1114276.html.
2 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com//news/india/death-of-three-sisters-
spotlights-india-dowry-violence/articleshow/92070742.cms?utm_source=-
contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.
3 By which this book refers to the entire institution of Indian Hindu marriage
and even beyond it into Christian, Muslim and even Buddhist marriages.
4 “I am the father of six girls, there is a limit to how much I can give”, added
Sardar, who earns a meagre income as a farmer. https://economictimes.
indiatimes.com//news/india/death-of-three-sisters-spotlights-india-dowry-
violence/articleshow/92070742.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_
medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst.
5 Vāhatu or vāhatum, as the Sanskrit term appears in this chant, is now accepted
as representing dowry. It is linked to vivāha or marriage. More on this in
Chapters 5, 7 and 8.
6 Notably here in the Hindi term lena or “taking” appears before dena, which is
to give. Whether this is merely a linguistic characterization because it sounds
better or whether it emphasises the role of the one who takes as being somehow
better or more superior in respect of the one who gives. As this thesis has out-
lined, the gift-giver is usually at the lower end of the social status scale.
7 The fictional Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady (1964) discovered in excess
of 200 distinct Indian languages, apart from various dialects; however, the
most recent count of actual Indian languages stands at “… including the 22
‘scheduled’ languages, stands at 461 spoken languages, including 14 considered
extinct across the subcontinent today…” (Arya, 2015). https://www.forbesin-
dia.com/article/think/various-versions-of-english-nay-inglish/41689/1.
8 Under the provision of the Special Marriage Act (1954), all persons of Indian
descent need to marry under the auspices of this act. In reality, far fewer mar-
riages end up being officially registered.
9 See below the discussion on the importance of the fourfold path to dharma, for
more detail on this aspect of the prohibitive law.

7
Introduction

8
 1
DOW RY A N D FATAL
AUSPICIOUSN ESS

In its most simplistic form, dowry is considered a customary gift, a ritual

payment made at marriage, blessing the couple. So, why is dowry problem-
atic enough to warrant an entire book? Customs can become revered as
tradition because they bind people to their reverential past. Most societies
in the world have some sort of customary gifting associated with weddings.
Often the girl’s family pick up the tab for wedding celebrations. This is con-
sidered auspicious, both symbolically and materially a good thing, simple.
However, in marriage, nothing is simple. What becomes the fatal aspect of
this associated auspiciousness is when the girl is considered merely the car-
rier of the gift of gold or cash and not as the one who inherently possesses
or carries over the auspiciousness in the body of her person.
The nature of dowry in text and context is what this chapter tackles.
Why is customary dowry-giving so influential in Indian societies, at home
and abroad? Further, examining the prevalent ideology that dowry is
“good custom” or sadācāra, and therefore right and proper practice, seems
to have emerged from the spread of Sanskritisation. This social process
also seems to account for how and why a particular interpretation of the
Brahmanic ̣ textual tradition has come to shape “tradition” more broadly,
particularly in light of the great and little traditions in India.1 More on
what makes dowry “good custom” and the nature of sadācāra, both in text
and practice, follows in Chapter 3. Is it “good custom” or law that inform
the “right” behaviour of people? However, now to the matter of fatal aus-
piciousness to clarify our main argument that marriages replicate mainly
“good custom” as a model.

1.1 Fatal auspiciousness

What is so fatal about being auspicious? What is considered most auspi-
cious at a wedding? Where will we find these details? To clearly grasp the
situation under survey, we need to examine the field, represented here by
the cultural texts. Fortunately, Indian marriage, both for gods and mortals,
is considered crucial enough for lengthy, documented discussion. It is, after

DOI : 10.4324/9780 429285202 -2 9

 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

all, the ideal marriage that holds down the very centre of the Indian cosmic
universe. Dowry has been underlying the auspiciousness of marriages made
in heaven and on earth since the Veda became word. We have masses of
literary sources to help reveal the underlying situation. Why fatal?
To get these questions answered, dowry needs unearthing in text and
context (Chapter 4). This book examines literature on Indian kinship and
family, the field where dowry-giving and receiving occurs. 2 Crucially, this
book highlights capital theory when considering the making of new mar-
ital ties in terms of kinship hierarchy, thereby attempting to define dowry
in sociological terms (Karve, 1965; Raheja, 1988). Leading sociologist
M. N. Srinivas (1984: 17) believes this theory however to be misleading.3
Nothing in the following discussion or debate is simple, let alone simplistic.
It is however intriguing and deeply interesting to seek out why dowry exists.
That dowry is the sum of gifts and prestations, linked to the formulation
of a marriage between two people, two families and finally two communi-
ties, tends to be central to most Indian marriages, whether Hindu or not.
That this gifting behaviour continues into the wider married life of the cou-
ple, beyond the rites associated with and surrounding the wedding itself,
and this is always plural has been clearly demonstrated within the argu-
ment here (see Chapter 4). In examining the link of hypergamy to dowry
marriages, the auspiciousness and purity associated with the giving of gold
is carefully outlined, particularly with reference to Gonda’s (1991: 6–8,
88–89) discovery of the need to conspicuously spend and lavish gold in
relation to marriage, before and after. The crucial impact of the different
degrees of hypergamy following Blunt’s (1931: 70) analysis among mod-
ern sociologists, Tambiah (1973a: 64) finds it ideologically critical to the
conception of marriage. This is particularly so when considering the sym-
bolic kanyadan—gift of the girl—since he believes this status superiority
is inherent in the gift of the dowry accompanying the “pure” gift of the
girl. If the most auspicious object of exchange, the girl “suitably bedecked”,
should be found wanting, then it is fatal. For the girl, a prospective family,
and in a wider sense: society itself. This is a cosmic concern for an ancient
society after all.
What becomes the fatal aspect of this auspiciousness is when the girl or
kanya, “suitably bedecked”, is perceived merely as the carrier of the gift or
dan of gold or cash and more in modern contexts and not as the one who
inherently possesses or carries over the auspiciousness in the body of her
person. What if the bedeckment is not suitable? Who decides the stand-
ards? For a much more detailed discussion on the degrees of difference in
the various regions of India, see Section 4.3. What is considered dan or
auspicious charity by the father of the bride (or indeed, whoever is conduct-
ing the kanyadan), unfortunately proves to be the starting point for more
monetary demands, sometimes resulting in what Indian newspapers refer
to as “dowry death”.

10
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

What requires further comment is the auspiciousness associated with all

the aspects involved. Each level of the marriage has an associated auspi-
ciousness: the act of giving the dowry in itself, the auspicious nature of
the gifts themselves and the intensely feminine energy powerfully linked
to both, the transaction itself and the girl who is seen to carry the gifts
across the threshold into the new household she and her husband are about
to set up (see Chapters 3 and 4). Marriages are by nature auspicious; it
creates harmony in the cosmos. The householder pins down the remainder
of chaotic society as organically perceived throughout the ancient Indian
world. Crucially, wherever one looks, the preoccupation of this society with
acquiring wealth and the auspicious nature of wealth in kind and cash is
deeply underlined, and thereby through repetition, imprinted onto the very
fabric of the society under survey.

1.2 Harmonic interlinking

Marriages create interconnections, both with the cosmos and with those
communities exchanging vows. Therefore, at macrocosmic level, harmony,
and at microcosmic level, harmonic relationship forging is seen as crucial.
The human marriage, as seen in the tenth book of the Rgveda, ̣ mimics
the harmonised partnership, which keeps the sun and moon in perpetual
motion, thereby through a similar linking in human terms marrying two
individuals creates or should harmony in the community and so on. In
Vedic terms, much importance is levelled on the householder securing a
good match to retain the harmonic linkage of gods and humans. The dates
of such unions are carefully studied, astrologically gauged, not just weather
checks for a sunny day that won’t ruin the party. Everything must tie in to
the overall auspiciousness and the interrelationships being formed. Much
has been made of this auspiciousness linked to connections created through
marriage (Hutton, 1961; Dumont, 1966: 116–119; Inden, 1976; Raheja,
1988). In this thesis, the importance and significance attached to gold as a
material of exchange and power and its crucial link to the ancient Brahma
form of marriage are clearly analysed in Chapter 5. In fact, Gonda (1977:
606) goes so far as to say that gold was seen as integral to this emulated
marriage form, which is further clearly attested in the ritual sutras. Of
course, for common people who cannot afford gold or may not value it as
such, other forms of metal or goods will suffice. Uma Gupta (1987: 41) also
makes the link of materialism to the mythology of the Vedas.4
Dowry, as mentioned throughout this book, discusses the nature of hyper-
gamy and its relevance, specifically to the notions of prestige. Hypergamy
is clearly seen to go towards the creation and maintenance of rank. This is
beyond the purely natural act of setting up a marriage, which by definition
sets up a network of auspicious relationships. As mentioned, the crux of
this research includes at its core the notion, simplistically, of trading wealth

11
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

for status. In terms of auspiciousness, this wealth is never considered as a

blatantly bartering means of material transaction (Inden, 1976; Fruzetti,
1990). It is always interlinked with the notion of auspiciousness in terms of
izzat or honour, when dealing with the concept of women as valuable assets
exchanging position from natal to affinal family units. The discussion on
hypergamy here must be brief, accounting mainly for prestige.
Dumont (1966: 282) highlights, for instance, the importance of the
“meritoriousness” of the marriage in terms of prestige, primarily achieved
in conditions where no payment is received for the girl (sampradan). There
is a wide acceptance of this across the length and width of the country
and diaspora. Also, the overall emphasis on hypergamy as the model for
the most auspicious of marriages is crucially noted by ethnographers and
anthropologists whether they are dealing with communities as far north
as in Kashmir (Madan, 1975) or at the opposite end of the country in Ker-
ala, Bengal (Inden, 1976) or rural north India or Punjab. Interestingly, the
case of this preoccupation with hypergamy seems relevant to studies in
early nineteenth-century Indian communities (Risley, 1891; Rivers, 1921),
as it is today (Saavala, 2010). This is possibly why, throughout the cultural
and even modern literature, academics balk at the notion of marriage as a
form of buying and selling children. Rather, what is conceived to be at play
within the auspicious context of marriage negotiations, the marriage itself
and then as the rites seem to further uphold and strengthen the initial ties
established through marriage, the gift of dowry is its direct link to prestige.
Inden (1976) makes much of the peculiarity of hypergamy in terms of
prestige with reference to Bengali marriage negotiations and transactions
linked to the “give and take” seen to effect and thereby affect the nature
of the marriage itself. Rivers (1921: 12), before Inden, also pointed out the
link of rank and ritual directly linked to gifts being given during this aus-
picious time.
In terms of auspiciousness, the muhurat or specifically auspicious hour
in the ancient period and still in use, lunar calendars continue to have an
important part to play. As is discussed elsewhere, auspiciousness is courted
by the couple and their families in the initial setting of not only the date but
also the precise time at which the knot should literally be tied. Although
when discussing the marriage arrangements of Keralite Christians, the
underlying influence of the more ancient, traditional, perhaps specifically
Hindu practices, which modern-day Christian converts act out, is oddly
consonant with traditional Hindu rites. These bear resemblance to dowry
behaviour observed during negotiations of ancient, medieval and even mod-
ern couples across India. However plural and locally variant these norms
continue to be, it is hard to ignore the similarity of the presence and impor-
tance of rules governed by a dominant hypergamous culture.
Raheja’s (1988: 120) observation during her rigorous study of mar-
riage prestations among the Pahansu people in rural north India is worth

12
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

Figure 1.1 Conceptual Model: the three theories guiding this thesis.

discussing here.5 While also unpicking Tambiah’s preoccupation with

dowry as pre-mortem inheritance, her study demonstrably proves that the
ethos of hypergamy appears distinct from the emblematic kanyadan prin-
ciple in wider India, but that crucially, the evidence in terms of ritual and
linguistic data gathered in relation to these prestations clearly represents
dowry as a total phenomenon: a complete cultural construct, a custom.
Customs form sanctions linked to behaviour associated with them. As a
matter of fact, there is evidence to suggest that acts of giving and receiving
carry clear messages, coded within the very act of the custom they denote.
Moreover, power equations are set and controlled between kin groups and
this is what foretells the future for the survival of dowry as a practice. The
theory of gift-giving, particularly relevant here, considers Mauss’s (1990)
conceptual examination of gift-giving in general and marriage prestations
more specifically (Figure 1.1).6

1.3 Model marriage matches made in heaven

In terms of a medieval model marriage, the Mahābhārata is replete with
references, as discussed in Chapter 2. What is crucial to note here is the
importance accorded to this link. Particularly in terms of religious and
spiritual advantage accorded to this text, in the Hindu tradition, religious
authority is often personal, embodied in the figure of the guru. Vyasa,
unanimously considered the composer of the Mahābhārata, is, in fact,

13
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

believed to stand at the head of the guru parampara or teacher tradition as

the originator and authenticator of all important teaching. He is the Guru
of Gurus. And therefore Vyasa’s authorship serves to validate the Mahāb-
hārata and its claim as the fifth Veda, which, in turn, reinforces this epic
text with supreme religious leverage.
Fascinatingly uniform, when we consider how autorickshaw drivers and
academics all pay lip service to the couplets quoted from this text, it is
important to understand the role this balladic writing played and continues
to play. In fact, Lipner (1994: 74–85) argues that the nature of the epic
verses made them easier to remember and therefore simpler to disseminate
at a later period through memory and recitation. Therefore, alongside the
religious hold, the epic has also social leverage, for an elite whose intent is
to incorporate, even infect, a wider society with their own ideals,7 it paves
the way for Sanskrtisation (Srinivas, 1984).
My own marriage had to be conducted at precisely 8.59 pm on 14 August
2002. My father’s eldest cousin, who still lived in our ancestral home where
̣
certain verses of the Rgveda are held for protection, dictated both time
and date. In the absence of my father, it fell to him to ordain these details.
I needed to travel by the end of September to begin this PhD thesis and we
thought it appropriate to marry (after a courtship of 13-odd years) before I
committed myself to this research project.
The timing was all wrong, we were told. August, for instance, is not
a month appropriate or auspicious for making marriages. December and
January tend to be more auspicious. But after deep consultation with the
planetary configuration, our individual and collective birth and life charts
astrologically, an appropriate date and time were found. So many other
factors dictate this sort of arrangement, and clearly cannot be detailed here.
For reasons of brevity, however, the fact that ours was a love8 match and
not arranged by our elders made the negotiations much simpler. Even so,
the underlying influence of the power struggle between groom-givers and
bride-bearers floated to the surface. In spite of the technical anomaly that
my partner and I were organising every last detail and spending our own
savings to make our marriage a reality, the overbearing burden of appropri-
ate behaviour had to be maintained in order to achieve a harmonic linking
of two families.
The difference in auspiciousness featuring in love matches or arranged
marriages has been examined by Osella and Osella (1998, 2000) and
Saavala (2010). It cannot be gone into at any length in this book or this
chapter; however, it is crucial to note that the presence of love in the mix
of marriage is not always a staying hand on those that have the intent to
demand a dowry. Saavala (2010: 52–57) discusses how the intervention of
love in the marriage model can play havoc with the more serenely perceived
Sanskritic ideal model of kanyadan, as discussed above. In hierarchical

14
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

terms, the prestigious ideal of the ancient Brahma form of marriage, where
the bride-bearers are meant to be the sole givers, “giving the gift of the
virgin and dowry as well as being an eternal source of gifts later on while
denying any reciprocal flow” (Saavala, 2010: 54) of wealth has to be fol-
lowed in order to achieve the correct status for a family. Love marriages
veritably transform the gift-giving model by putting it on its head, making
it appear instead like the opposite model of gift exchange, namely bride-
wealth. Saavala (2010: 54) makes the further observation that:

…in some cases of love marriage, the boy’s side might give to the
girls’ side thereby inverting the hierarchical model in which the
girl’s side is eternally “below” the receivers of the gifts. For exam-
ple, a young man received a car as a gift from his sister’s fiancé
before the wedding. Evidently he felt embarrassed by the fact and
when I asked about the origins of the vehicle, he explained that the
gift was from his sister. This kind of more reciprocal exchange in
marriage transactions leads to a new constellation that could pos-
sibly shake the established hierarchical and hypergamous model of
dowry and arranged marriage.

However, as much as one would weigh in favour of the reverence of rec-

iprocity in marriage-making and related transactions, the embedded
behaviour which accompanies such marriages highlights the long and
narrow road to travel in order for any change for the better. In the mean-
time, the social fact remains that arranged marriage is the high- status
norm (Saavala, 2010: 46), and this is emulated by wider society. In the
absence of reliable statistics for free choice marriages, it is probably
safe to assume that arranged marriages are the norm. The most preva-
lent model for love marriages, often provided by the 1,000-films-a-year
Bollywood market, is not encouraged. Here, too, the dowry model is
subtly replicated.9
Most of the behaviour documented here is underwritten by a conscious
perception of dowry marriage as the ideal model, both in the mindsets of
groom-givers and bride-bearers. For instance, the gift of dowry willingly
given is often seen as showering affection on one’s daughter. Saavala (2010:
54) notes the case of a mother of three girls, where this mindset of having to
give something to secure a good future of the girl becomes apparent. This
rationale is by no means limited to the few, as Saavala (2010: 54) notes:

some people want to take [dowry], some people don’t take dowry.
We give as much as we possibly can. Whatever we have we give,
beyond our means we can’t give. We want our daughter to be in a
nice family background, so we have to give something.

15
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

And as Saavala (2010, 54) goes on to note, this peculiar rationale common
among upwardly mobile middle-class families in any Indian Hindu family:

if they can afford to pay dowry, they think it will secure a desirable
match for their daughter and reduce the possibility of her suffering
in the affinal home. In most middle-class peoples’ thinking, send-
ing your daughter to her husband’s family without money gold
and gifts would be asking for trouble.
(Emphasis added)

“‘Giving’ confers power on the giver; ‘receiving’ is a sometimes shameful

act that can put the receiver in the power of the giver”. This aspect of a
complex power equation linked to the giving and receiving of dowry has
been clearly tackled in Chapter 4 and is therefore only briefly addressed
below.
Often, among friends and others, I have heard painful cases when love
marriages have turned into damaging divorce battles, accompanied by
demonised versions of dowry. Particularly harassment, where unsatisfied
in-laws harangue a young bride saying “If he had married someone we
chose she would have brought so much wealth. But you married for love
like in Hindi films, it is very modern, but not always the best for everyone”.
Similarly, Saavala (2010) finds in Andhra Pradesh cross-cousin marriages
where love may be a factor in choosing a certain bride, but then coming in
for surreptitious slandering. Although cross-cousin marriages were tradi-
tionally the acceptable, even desirable, norm in Hindu South India, this is
somewhat altered today.
One case noted by Saavala is worth repeating here. A young bride domi-
ciled in her husband’s joint family home with two little children sharing the
space with her husband’s siblings and their nuclear families and therefore
dependent on the parents-in-law had to suffer for not having brought any
dowry. She explained, “…her parents-in-law kept reminding her that other
brides would have brought with them Rs. 4 lakhs while she brought none”.
This was used as a bargaining tool to force housework and cooking on her,
although their other daughters-in-law could just as easily have pitched in.
But separation and divorce, though in contemporary times offer an
option, are never the preferred choice, either for the woman or to impose
on children of a difficult, dowry-drained marriage. What this case clearly
confirms is that dowry adds to a woman’s status and bargaining power in
the family. Clearly, a woman who brings a lot of property in whatever form
into her new marital home will have a different status than the one who
came with less. The situation persists in overseas communities within the
diaspora as well. For instance, the specific case of suffering caused within
a single family, between two sisters and their father, in the British Sikh
community.10

16
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

Further, though love marriage offers parents with limited means an

escape, however discreditable, from at least initial dowry demands. But,
as Saavala notes, there are cases where, in love matches, demands may sur-
face after a marriage has taken place (2010: 53). Then there are the cases
of highly educated women who will save up and pay either the entirety or
contribute to the paying of the dowry or marriage expenses. All in all, this
most recent discussion on middle-class India demonstrates that the ideal of
marriage arranged by the wider kin group persists (Saavala, 2010: 48–49).
In the case of Lalita, who saved up from her own earnings, the parents were
looked down upon by the wider group. In Lalita’s own words, the older
relatives disapprove of parents who were “making their daughters work
for themselves” because it is clearly seen as the parents’ duty to provide the
accompanying gift of a dowry to make the “gift of a virgin” more accept-
able to the affinal family (Saavala, 2010: 41–42).

1.4 Social sanction as sadācāra

This notion attests the findings within my thesis that these pressures of
peer perception indicate what appropriate behaviour, “good custom”, is
when making marriage matches, negotiations and choices. Clearly then,
sadācāra is at play here. The cognitive value linked to this sort of collective
conscience shared by an entire community cannot be underplayed. When,
as these days, higher education takes longer, demands for dowries may be
exorbitant and a suitable match becomes harder to find. This may, of course,
be linked to assumptions that older girls are difficult to live with and dowry
may here be seen as an additional cost imposed because of certain perceived
or actual negative characteristics of the bride, age being only one of them.
More recent trends point to a new model of behaviour at play in the modern
Indian middle classes, which is worth discussing here in brief.
Varma (1994) observed that upwardly mobile, relatively new middle class
is not depicted in a favourable light as a socially responsible class aware
of the needs of a developing society around them.11 Instead, they seem to
constitute a social strata selfishly motivated by their own preoccupations
in terms of displays of conspicuous consumption and status-driven con-
sumerism. Prestige, social and otherwise! Those identified as belonging to
the modern Indian middle class do not necessarily form a “class for itself”
as a socially cohesive stratum aware of its shared economic and societal
interests. Gupta (2000) found from his moral high ground that regrettably,
though this relatively new social class is westernised, it is a skin-deep plas-
tic mentality, with no added conceptions of equal rights or a true under-
standing of liberal democracy. However uncomfortable this viewpoint is,
it is crucial to consider that it is against this very backdrop that much of
the problem relating to dowry behaviour is acted out, and by middle-class
people who believe themselves to have achieved the cornerstones of western

17
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

society in every sense, but still remain akin to a cultural specificity much
entrenched in a deep traditionality. It is this complex hypocrisy that adds to
and largely constitutes the depth of the problem.
Bourdieu’s (1984) classification of French society may be seen as deriv-
ative to the nature of the modern middle class in India today and is in
contrast to Liechty’s (2003) production-related classification.12 In terms of
a significantly more relevant casting of class, overtly as a culturally influ-
enced social process, this thesis understood the importance of relating the
morality of a small group to suit the majority of those who practise dowry
behaviour. In this sense, the study here reinvents the position of a class or
even a caste struggle based on Bourdieu’s more or less symbolic and some-
what status-guided formations. Class struggle, in a Marxist sense, may
appear an outmoded strategy for a community to busy itself with in an
attempt to gain and barter for better rank, but in Indian terms, it is relevant
here. This sort of tug-of-war between classes continues at ground level,
and the status-guided, position-seeking negotiated constantly during mar-
riage match-making fits here. Of particular concern here is the central fea-
ture of belonging to the middle class in the ongoing classification struggle
(Bourdieu, 1984): specifically how to restrict entry to others from the lower
strata into the higher one and crucially how to gain acceptance by one’s
status equals and superiors (Saavala, 2010: 12).13 This is relevant in terms
of dowry behaviour, in particular. Another typical feature of middle-class
morality noteworthy here is the high moral value attached to monetary
means, to practice morally higher standards, which links in also with mod-
ern-day, dowry-related behaviour.
Increasingly, the new middle class in India expresses their role in society
as “being modern” not as a reflection of being westernised but being indig-
enous. This new group in discussing modernity and its morality consider
it very much indigenous to their lives.14 Osella and Osella (2000), in their
observation of an upwardly mobile lower caste in Kerala, found a similar
pattern of behaviour and thought.
This brings us to the following discussion on the position of traditional
texts, and specifically how one can overlay ancient and medieval expec-
tations and thought processes onto a modern marriage market without
creating great discomfort among modern-day lawmakers, feminists and
interpreters of anthropological pasts. In search of a more comfortable and
proud modernity, modern dowry and related death rates clearly represent
a threat to the preoccupation with the golden age ideologue of the Hindu
Right. There has been an insistence on recasting the past, to make moder-
nity more acceptable than the westernised models left behind by colonial
law-making administrators.

18
 Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

Notes
1 See Miller (1966) for an illuminating discussion on the great and little traditions
in India. This is not the place for a deeper discussion of these aspects of the
great and little traditions in the context of Indian communities.
2 See, for instance, Marriot (1955); Hutton (1961); Karve (1965); Dumont
(1966); Tambiah (1973); Inden (1976); Madan (1975, 1987, 1989); Raheja
(1988); Fruzetti (1990); Saavala (2010).
3 For a more expansive discussion on Srinivas’s viewpoint, see Section 4.1, deal-
ing with the problem of defining dowry accurately.
4 Gupta is not the first to examine and analyse Vedic mythology in terms of
a preoccupation with materialism and amassing wealth through ritual; clear
arguments in this regard were previously presented by Edwards (1924) The
Philosophy of Religion; also noteworthy is Huxley’s (1957) Religion without
Revelation. But see also Shastri (1957), Lefever (1935).
5 See in detail Chapter 4, particularly Section 4.4 and the discussion on trad-
ing wealth for prestige and status. The plural nature of these practices is also
overtly noted in the latter and must be respected within the context of these
discussions at all times.
6 Marcel Mauss’s study, although released in French between 1923 and 1924,
became more widely translated and available to academics and others in 1950.
Therefore, in reference to the conceptual idea, this date is used in the thesis.
In the discussion of gift theory in this thesis, two versions or translations of
Mauss are used. However, a more recent reading is relevant for a much changed
world. Interestingly, the very title is translated variously. Halls’s (1990) version
uses the phrase “form and reason for exchange” as opposed to the previous
translation “form and function”. This represents the shift in focus of our soci-
ety from a more functional to one that attempts explanations, perhaps?
7 See Lipner (1994: 25–165) for an explanation of how “the Veda” functions as
“scripture” and notably for the present purpose for the relevance of caste and
narrative (108–145), also a discussion on the part folklore plays in the wider
social network in India in the context of the growth of intellectual power of an
entire group (146–164).
8 Although the proportion of love marriages or free choice marriages in India is
growing, the trend leans in favour of arranged-cum-love marriages. An inter-
esting study highlighting the “doomed” nature of young romances outside the
purview of parental control worth a mention here is Osella and Osella (1998),
who found that often young couples who had established or entered into
romantic affairs commonly expressed the “hopelessness” of their situation.
9 See Ye Aag kab Bujhegi (1991) as one example of dowry-related troubles being
reflected in popular Hindu cinema. More recent references in popular culture
are abundant, of course.
10 Such scenarios are not unique to the British Sikh community, but are more
widespread, and as yet under-researched.
11 The part played by the daily praxis of middle-class groups in various other
parts of Asia was scrutinised with due attention paid to the transformative
role of social behaviour (See Osella and Osella, 2000; Liechty, 2003; among
others). What Saavala’s (2010) study does is synthesises the socio-cultural pro-
cesses at play in Indian and Asian middle-class groups by exploring how these
are interrelated and how they reflect cultural specificity.

19
Dowry and fatal auspiciousness

20
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Fausto

¡Dulce dueño!

Margarita

Y además
me disgusta en compañía
verte...

Fausto

¿De quién, alma mía?

Margarita

De ese con quien siempre vas.

Le odio con el alma entera:
en toda mi vida vi
rostro ni expresión que así
me impresionara y me hiriera.

Fausto

¡Pueriles recelos son!

Margarita

Con todos soy indulgente;

pero al ver ese hombre enfrente,
me da un vuelco el corazón.
Tan vivos como el placer
que me inspira tu presencia,
son el temor y la violencia
que al verle siento nacer.
Y una idea de otra en pos,
le juzgué infame y malvado:
si acaso le he calumniado,
que me lo perdone Dios.
 Fausto

Toda especie de alimaña

ha de haber.

Margarita

No, no quisiera
servir yo de compañera
a un ser de esa raza extraña.
Cuando aquí los pasos guía
muestra, para darme enojos,
siempre el rencor en los ojos
y en los labios la ironía.
A cuanto pasa alredor
permanece indiferente,
y escrito lleva en su frente
que es su alma incapaz de amor.
¡A tu lado, gozo tanto!
Feliz, tranquila, contenta
estoy; mas, si él se presenta,
me siento morir de espanto.

Fausto

¡Ángel présago quizá!

Margarita

Y tal imperio en mí tiene

este horror, que cuando él viene
pienso que no te amo ya.
Ante él, sin que me lo explique,
rezar no sé, y me devora
angustia desgarradora.
¿No te pasa a ti eso, Enrique?

Fausto
 Antipática manía
es tal temor...

Margarita

¡Oh, no!... Mas

ya es tarde. Me voy.

Fausto

¿Te vas?
¿Cuándo podré, vida mía,
una hora de dulce calma
disfrutar en tu regazo,
fundiendo en estrecho abrazo
el alma mía con tu alma?

Margarita

Dejaría, para ti,

si durmiera sola, abierta
la cerraja de mi puerta;
pero mi madre está allí,
y es muy ligero su sueño.
¡Ay! Si despierta y nos ve,
al suelo muerta caeré.

Fausto

No temas, celeste dueño.

Toma al punto este licor;
tres gotas en su bebida
pon, y quedará dormida
en letargo embriagador.

Margarita

Por tu amor me avengo a todo.

Mas dime primeramente
que este filtro es inocente...

Fausto

¿Te lo diera, de otro modo?

Margarita

¡Ay! Cuando me hablas así,

rendida a tu arbitrio quedo:
¿qué es lo que negarte puedo,
si tanto te concedí?
(Vase.)

ENTRA MEFISTÓFELES

Mefistófeles

¿Voló el pájaro?

Fausto

¿En acecho
estabas?

Mefistófeles

No; mas a fe
de Diablo, todo lo sé.
¡Doctor, buen sermón te han hecho!
¡Que aproveche la enseñanza!
La mujer quiere, y no en vano,
al hombre devoto y llano,
y según la antigua usanza.
«Así, dice, así se empieza,
y si este yugo consiente,
a otros, insensiblemente,
doblando irá la cabeza.»
 Fausto

Monstruo, ¿no piensas, no ves,

que esa alma sencilla y casta,
llena de la fe entusiasta
que su amor y su bien es,
padece duelo profundo
al mirar, en su ilusión,
perdido sin remisión
a quien más ama en el mundo?

Mefistófeles

¡Galán sensible y feliz!

Fausto

¡Aborto de horrible escoria!

Mefistófeles

Una chiquilla –¡qué gloria!– te

lleva de la nariz.
¡Y es sagaz fisonomista!
Al verme, no sé qué siente;
pero vislumbró en mi frente
algo escondido a la vista,
y penetrando el abismo
de mi ser, comprendió presto
que soy un genio funesto,
o quizás el Diablo mismo.
Conque, esta noche... ¡Ya tarda!
Esta noche...

Fausto

¿Y qué te importa?

Mefistófeles
 Tengo yo parte, y no es corta,
en la dicha que te aguarda.
 EN LA FUENTE

MARGARITA Y LUISA, con cántaros

Luisa

¿Nada has sabido de Bárbara,

Margarita?

Margarita

Nada sé.
Salgo tan poco...

Luisa

Sibila
me lo explicó todo bien.
Al fin y al cabo, burlada:
¡la orgullosa!...

Margarita

¿Puede ser?

Luisa

¡Vaya! Cuando come y bebe,

para ella sola ya no es.

Margarita

¡Dios!...

Luisa

Llevó su merecido:
¡si había de suceder!...
¿Te acuerdas? A todas horas
colgadita del doncel;
a paseo, al campo, al baile
de la plaza... sin perder
fiesta ni broma... Y obsequios,
golosinas... ¡Le está bien!
¡Tan pagada de bonita!
¡Tan vana!... Y a dos por tres
aceptando regalillos
la que afectaba desdén.
De este modo, ahora un halago
y una caricia después,
entre halagos y caricias
voló, al fin, su doncellez.

Margarita

¡Infeliz!
 Luisa

¿La compadeces?
Recuerda, recuerda, pues,
cuando, aplicadas al torno,
una noche y otra y cien,
no nos dejaba la madre
poner en la calle el pie;
y en el banco de la puerta,
ella, a la sombra, con él,
miraba las largas horas
dulces y breves correr.
Pague aquellas alegrías,
y vistiendo su merced
el sayal de penitente,
díganos el yo pequé.

Margarita

Mas, se casará con ella...

Luisa

Tonto fuera... ¡y es un pez!

Aire encuentra en todas partes
un pajarraco como él,
y ya voló.

Margarita

¡Es una infamia!

Luisa

Que corra y lo atrape, pues.

La corona de la boda
los mozos han de romper,
y echaremos las doncellas
paja picada a sus pies.
 (Vase.)

Margarita, volviendo a casa

¿Cómo, ¡ay, Dios!, tan altanera

otras veces me indigné
cuando a una pobre muchacha
vi tropezar y caer?
¿Cómo, para ajenas faltas
hecha inexorable juez,
jamás encontró mi lengua
palabra bastante cruel?
Pintábame yo la culpa
aún más negra de lo que es,
y a pesar de ser tan negra,
la quería ennegrecer,
y jamás, ennegreciéndola,
bastante negra la hallé.
Y ahora ¿qué soy? ¡Desdichada!
¡Pecado y culpa también!
Y todo aquello –¡Dios mío!– que
me impulsó, sin saber,
a estos abismos, ¡cuán grato,
cuán grato y cuán dulce fue!
EN LOS MUROS DE LA CIUDAD

Una imagen de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores en un nicho

de la muralla. Delante de ella vasos con flores

Margarita, poniendo flores frescas en los vasos

¡Oh Madre afligida! ¡Oh Madre angustiada!

Los ojos inclina piadosa hacia mí.
Hundida en el pecho durísima espada,
llorando la muerte del Hijo, te vi.

Llorando sin treguas el suyo y tu duelo,

las quejas exhalas de aquel doble afán;
los húmedos ojos levantas al cielo;
tus hondos suspiros también allá van.

Tormento cual este, que fiero me oprime,

¿quién puede en el mundo, quién puede sentir?
¡Tú, Virgen piadosa, tú, Madre sublime,
tú sola, que sabes de amar y sufrir!

Doquiera que vaya, mi afán va conmigo;

doquiera lo esconda, lo arrastro detrás;
llorando y llorando mi mal no mitigo;
llorando y llorando no puedo ya más.
 Los tiestos que alegran mi pobre ventana
regaba con llanto de acerbo dolor,
cuando, amaneciendo, cogí esta mañana
sus flores que siempre te guarda mi amor.

El sol inundaba, risueño y brillante,

mi humilde aposento con vívida luz,
y el rayo primero me halló vigilante,
sentada en mi lecho, llorando mi cruz.

¡Oh Madre afligida! ¡Oh Madre angustiada!

Los ojos inclina piadosa hacia mí;
de horrible deshonra, de muerte ultrajada
liberta a quien siempre buscó amparo en ti.
 DE NOCHE

Calle delante de la puerta de MARGARITA

Valentín, soldado, hermano de Margarita

Cuando, al son de las botellas,

nuestra bulliciosa tropa
hacía, entre copa y copa,
el elogio de las bellas,
yo, en la mesa entrambos codos,
escuchaba sin empacho;
y atusándome el mostacho,
después que acababan todos,
ajeno a temor y cuita,
el vaso, bien lleno, alzaba,
y «en el mundo no hay, gritaba,
otra como Margarita.
De ofender a nadie trato;
mas sostengo mi fortuna:
¡no le llega, no, ninguna
a la suela del zapato!»
Todos, chocando a la vez
los vasos en confusión,
gritaban: «Tiene razón;
es de su sexo honra y prez.»
Y a la común alegría
dando tributo forzoso,
hasta el más vanaglorioso
callaba, si no aplaudía.
Y ahora, cualquier insolente
puede mofarse de mí:
hay para estrellarse, sí,
contra una esquina la frente.
¡Cuán horribles sinsabores!
Como deudor criminal,
a cada frase casual
siento angustias y sudores,
y en vano al que murmuró
provoco, si a la ira cedo;
pues estrangularlo puedo,
pero desmentirlo, no.
Alguien viene: son dos, sí.
¡Si uno de ellos fuera mi hombre!
¡Oh! ¡Si es él –¡voto a mi nombre!–,
no saldrá vivo de aquí!

FAUSTO, MEFISTÓFELES

Fausto

¿Ves por la ventana aquella

que a la sacristía da,
una lámpara que ya
moribunda luz destella,
y más triste cada vez
brilla, con turbio desmayo,
y al lanzar su último rayo,
todo es sombra y lobreguez?
¡Así, negra oscuridad
mi corazón hoy inunda!
 Mefistófeles

Pues yo siento la profunda

y viva felicidad
del gato escuálido y viejo
que los tejados pasea,
y en la tibia chimenea
frota el áspero pellejo.
En mi honrada condición
hay, o mucho me equivoco,
de libidinoso un poco
y otro poco de ladrón;
y así aguardo ansioso ya,
Santa Valpurgis, tu noche,
porque en ella quien trasnoche
no en balde trasnochará.

Fausto

¿Lograré en ella el tesoro

que allá en las entrañas vi
de la tierra?

Mefistófeles

Para ti
será el cofrecillo de oro.
Los ojos eché ya en él:
de doblas está repleto.

Fausto

¿Y no viste algún objeto

de adorno, anillo o joyel
para mi adorada?...

Mefistófeles

Verlas
no pude bien; mas respondo
de que había allí en el fondo
algo cual sarta de perlas.

Fausto

Pláceme, porque me enfada

ir con las manos vacías
a verla.

Mefistófeles

Y pues siempre ansías

gozar dicha no lograda,
ahora que el cielo nos muestra
todas sus luces brillantes,
podrás en breves instantes
escuchar una obra maestra.
Se trata de una canción,
pero una canción moral,
que a tu niña celestial
ha de hacer viva impresión.
(Canta acompañándose con la mandolina.)

Aún el alba matutina

vierte incierto resplandor;
¿qué buscas tú, Catalina,
a la puerta de tu amor?
¡Cuidadito, niña bella!
mira, mira adónde vas:
¡sabe Dios, si entras doncella,
sabe Dios cómo saldrás!
No vengas, no, con reproches,
cuando te dejes querer:
¿ya cediste? ¡Buenas noches!
¡Siempre así, pobre mujer!
Cuando el galán pida y ruegue,
no te dejes ablandar,
hasta que, al cabo, te entregue
el anillo en el altar.

Valentín, presentándose

¿A quién llamas, cazador

ratonil? ¡Se acabó el cuento!
¡Vaya al diablo el instrumento,
y vaya al diablo el cantor!

Mefistófeles

Dio fin la cítara ya,

en dos partida.

Valentín

¡Está bien!
Veamos ahora quién a quién
la crisma le romperá.

Mefistófeles, a Fausto
 ¡Doctor, firme! Al punto saca
la tizona. ¡Así! A mi lado
mantente siempre pegado;
yo paro el golpe; tú, ataca.

Valentín

Parad esa.

Mefistófeles

¿Por qué no?

Valentín

Y esa también.

Mefistófeles

Ya lo ves.

Valentín

Si no es el diablo, ¿quién es?

Mi puño se entumeció.
 Mefistófeles, a Fausto

¡Tírale a fondo!