Dowry  property or money given by a bride's family to a groom's family or vice versa as part of a marriage contract. In Bengali it is known as pan or joutuk. In Hindi and Urdu it is called dahej. In Bangladesh, the practice of giving or taking dowry was made a punishable offence by the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980 to prevent wives being oppressed and murdered on account of it. Mahr, denmahr or mahrana, payable obligatorily by a husband to his wife as part of the written or unwritten marriage contract under Muslim Personal Law or Shariah law, is to be regarded as dower and not dowry. Muslim dower or mahr was also excluded from the purview of the Indian Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. The Bangladesh Act provides that payment or demand for payment of dowry by any one is punishable with imprisonment for up to five years or a fine or with both. The laws enacted in 1983, 1995, and 2000 to prevent cruelty to women and children provide for a sentence of death or life imprisonment and financial penalty to a husband or any of his relatives who causes or attempts to cause death or grievous injury to a wife on account of dowry.

But neither in India nor in Bangladesh has the prohibited social vice of dowry, now payable mostly to grooms for their higher value in the marriage market on account of their capacity to earn a good living or higher status in society, stopped or diminished in any noticeable degree. Repression of women for their inability to bring adequate or repeated instalments of dowry from their poor parents and resultant deaths or grievous injuries is rather disquietingly frequent. Although the practice has been condemned since Vedic times, it has persisted till this day despite repeated efforts, both moral and legal, to eradicate it.

In ancient Hindu society there developed, in disregard to the frown of the scriptures, the custom of paying dowry as bride price but in modern times, this has turned into dowry as groom price because of hypergamy or kulinism. The traditional concept of hypergamy based on caste distinctions has since the 19th century assumed a new dimension in the shape of university degrees. The Bengal Census Report of 1911 quoted one eminent observer as saying: "Education, instead of stifling or mitigating the baneful effects of kulinism, has gone to a horrible degree to strengthen them. In fact, the university standard has become a more powerful engine of oppression for the girl's father than 85 kulinism." Educational qualifications put up the price of a groom because he was more likely to get a remunerative employment. As Muslims took to English education about fifty years behind Hindus, this brand of kulinism, in addition to the prevailing kulinism in the garb of khandani families in contrast with the families in such lowly professions as farming, fishing, weaving and oil-milling, also developed among them promoting the practice of dowry on a wider scale. In Bangladesh the widespread prevalence of dowry among Hindus is attributed to strict kulinism or caste restrictions, especially among the higher castes. Until the 19th century, this led to the spread of polygamy on a scale that saw high caste brahmans having even more than a hundred wives allowing them to visit a wife left in her father's house not more than once a year. This made it easy for these Brahmans to live like parasites on the dowries and hospitality of their many fathers-in-law.

In Islamic societies mahr or denmahr (bride price) is payable in two parts - on the spot at wedding and delayed. The wife may legally refuse to have conjugal relations with the husband until the first part is paid. The second part is a debt that a husband must pay on demand even if divorced or widowed and this is to be paid if the claim is made within three years. Denmahr is payable to the wife under all circumstances even if there is no mention of it in the marriage contract. It is obligatory on the part of the husband whether he is rich or poor, adult or adolescent, young or old. If he is incapable of paying, the court will not spare him. Under Islamic law, denmahr is entirely the wife's property. Denmahr, bride price or dowry, never permitted the wife to be treated harshly by the husband; it merely conferred legal recognition of the two to lead conjugal life and to have children.

The social scenario in the subcontinent, especially in Bangladesh, has remained largely static and the authorities continue to be engaged in legal exercises to prevent dowry-related cruelty to women. Religious and social inhibitions still act as roadblocks to women's higher education and deny them wider job opportunities for economic independence. Combined with the high rise in population, very low GDP growth, and poor social security services, these factors reduce the possibility of dowry being eliminated from the society in the near or even the distant future. [Enamul Haq]