A Question of Dowry & Everything is arranged

“Dowry is unfairly treated in both stories”. Is it true? Let us find out the answer together.

Dowry is given from the woman’s family to the groom’s family so that they will be able to take good care of the woman in the future of her life with her husband. It is not a compulsory. Yet, when the time progresses, dowry is treated as a compulsory task for the woman’s side of family to prepare as stated in both stories mentioned above. It started from an optional option, but when the society is using it widely and indirectly created a new rule, thus it has become compulsory.

Not only is that, the levels of education also an important element in determining the dowry. Someone who is married to a doctor has a higher dowry compared to a person who is a SPM graduate only. Furthermore, in the story, “Everything’s Arranged”, Rukumani’s dowry for the groom’s family had been increased because she will not finish her Bachelor of Arts and Science in University. Once again, human’s value is treated as goods.

The “new” concept of dowry had created a social barrier. If a poor family wants to marry to a rich family, they need to be able to give a big amount of dowry to the rich family. That is why normally poor family will only be married to the poor family as well. In the end, the rich people will be richer than before while poor people become poorer. This unbalance of social status will affect our future generation in surviving in the community.

The last point is that money has more value than human dignity. The value of money decides one’s happiness of marriage in both of the stories. If a family is able to give dowry, they can make sure that the bride will be well treated. This also leads to personal respect being destroyed. The main character cannot decide his or her future life partner unless it is making decision based on the dowry given. Besides that, money has more value than human dignity when ones cannot marry to the person who he or she loves but to marry the person who gives him or her dowry. A person loses his or her right in choosing the love one as life partner but sacrifice his or her happiness for the sake of dowry.

In conclusion, we strongly agree that the dowry is unfairly treated in both of the stories. The original concept of giving the dowry has changed follow by the time advancing. People will not be able to treat dowry as non-vital and yet love is the most important thing that couples need to consider and develop on.