Why only girls' parents bear wedding expenses?

Is there any personal laws in India which says that the Groom should spend all the he has in the marriage and become insolvent after bringing his wife to his House? God forbid it if it is there in any personal laws. What Sir.Ram says? " Self Organized Race" this practice is nothing but simply a show off to the people that they are the Haves!

I concur with this, solution lies in true spirit and honest approach.

@ those who oppose my views

becoz of u people only,marriage has become a commercial business,female infanticide is rampant and the worst hit are the middle class and poor people who are also forced to follow such norms of spending so much on daughter's marriage all alone,declining her gud education or letting her remain a spinster,all becoz of this marriage business which they cant afford

.only such people who object to my views are responsible for ending the sanctity of marriage and making it a market where grooms are sold for the highest prices possible....becoz prices are set for these grooms,larki wale have no option but to buy these "costly "goods" at the highest prices possible...the higher is the education and job of this "commercial good", higher is the price set by his parents...

so its obvious larki wale also come forward and buy these "goods"and then they are held responsible for buying them,as if the parents of these "goods" never tried seling them in the first place...

tomorrow u will say,boys have never demanded dowry and that dowry system is one big lie...only girls' families are forcing them to take dowry....while boys and their parents are begging  and touching their feet   "please dont pay us dowry"................................................................

i m not posting these articles to seek others' approval........

this website must also be visited by people who are not members here,but who must be reading all the posts here.....i post all my views becoz i m sure it must be changing the mindset of many people who are also chained owing to such evils....

if sum1 disagrees with me,let him do so....i will not force my opinions on him.................

PEACE

Hats off for Aishwarya jee !!

Gurudev Ravindranath told that when you are on the path of truth never mind others are coming with you or not.

Ekla Chalo Re.....

Toward winning the Everest one has to take first step first.

@ram jee

thanks for your inspiration..

hv a gud day!

@ Aishwarya

bride's parents are compelled to spend.............becoz of societal norms.....if they start asking for equality or start protesting while fixing matches,their daughters will remain unmarried always.and if they get married,they will face abuses becoz the marriage was too "simple"...so laws are reqd.

i m talking of general scenario.dont bring a few communities in the picture....

if girl's parents want to show off  by overspending,why are they also killing females wen they are born...is it not becoz of the burden that they will have to overspend in marriage?u have not answered this....

Ms. Aishwarya

I don't understand why this topic is going on and on and on for nothing. Everyone has a right to air their views. So let it be. You can take it lightly. For your information I would like to tell you, all these days I was keeping quiet reading the different views. But now I would like to give my own personal experience. My in-laws they are 4 daughters only. Simple marriage was conducted telling the facts and all the girls are decently qualified, i.e. graduates. After getting married they continued with their studies. There was no compulsion on the side of any of their husbands or their in-laws.

So I should tell you here that it is those who would like to fly high trying to get their girls married to an Engineer, Doctor and others having either high qualifications and also big salary income get entangled in this high spending moods to satisfy their own ego. Others who are humble get along in the society even if they have 4 daughters and lead a good satisfying life. Maybe I feel you are in someway affected so you want laws. But laws like Mr. Ram jee said it can only add to further corruption and will not help anyone. Also there was one opinion stating that there is law on prevention of dowry but you can see lots of cases being filed and many are sent to prison. Under these circumstances how you expect another law will help the society. By bringing laws, it will either send some to the prison and others to fight a long drawn battle and thus both the families will be spoiling their future.

So in conclusion, I am of the opinion it is the duty of every individual to be within their limits under all circumstances and be not carried away by the charms of higher society which they want to scale without any ladder. Be yourself and lead a happy and a contented life. That will be good for the one leading it, for the family, for the society at large. 

I doubt if this. I do not think that marriage expenses are borne by the brides side alone. My own marriage and for both of my sisters was a 50:50 affair. Some ideas are from Aishwarya are feministic and probably from a personal experience in a failed marriage.

When a marriage fails for wife: Wife files false 498a, DVA, 125 etc

When marriage fails for the man: Wife files false 498a, DVA, 125 etc

Read this example of woman who says, she was harrassed. Interestingly, this throws light on the above two facts because this woman accuses the husband and in-laws for harrassment, even when the man's side took loan for the marriage expenses: https://www.legalserviceindia.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=35&TopicID=10198&PagePosition=3

WKB

@WantKidBack: I don't think that legal terrorism has to do anyhting with the expenses on the wedding. This is just one of the STUPID idea to keep others away from the root cause of the social problems. Just like our respected politicians do.

Anyways, its a nice time pass!

At the outset let me agree that I agree with SwathirS when he raised the point of women's inheritance rights in her natal famil

I think the topic is relevant,  but Aishwarya, let us be convinced that the moment parents would start giving equal treatment to their daughters from the beginning, from their very childhood,right to education/higher education, right to choose the career of their choice, right to have a  share in her natal property, landed or otherwise, right to decide whether to marry or not, or when to marry and with whom to marry, the problem of dowry and high wedding expenses would stop. You know on  an average, families have both girl and boy children, and applied to all families, it goes like this:  When the natal family focuses on and encourages girls to take up higher education and  career/enterprises/self employment and support them in their  efforts to be economically independent, the focus on higher wedding expenses would shift. It also implies that the economy at the household levels have to be transparent( in business families it becomes all the more important, that the girl is aware of her share in the family income and has freedom to invest it in her higher education/ vocation etc.  

The state has to support these efforts by floating lot more fellowships for girls/ women, a network of childcare facilities in educational institutions and work places and good childcare centres at subsidised cost( gender budgeting can include it all) for those women who are self employed. Beyond all this, an intensive campaign needs to be launched on removing the stigma which divorced, deserted, never married women and widows face in our social set up. Decent Scholarships for divorced, deserted women and widows can also be launched for encouraging them to go in for higher education, which eventually may pave way to jobs which give them higher  economic returns. At the same time, decent  hostels with enhanced security ( not the despicable ones already existing)  for single women should be established by the state, may be in partnership with private agencies( gender budgeting from the sate+ CSR funding from private organisations). 

Apart from these, educational institutions from Primary to higher levels need to look into the gender biases which are  conveyed( more at the primary through high school levels, when a mind is being shaped/ molded) through promoting and reinforcing stereotype images of girls /boys, women/ men. Men too are affected by the stereotypical images, but women are relatively more disadvantaged than men in a patriarchal society. The natal families also should have courage to support  their daughters, if they are leading opressive marital lives rather than keep advising girls to adjust( adjustment is fine upto an extent, but can never be one sided) with the damaging situations. Now if the natal family has this attitude and girls can go back to their natal families as a matter of right( as they have spaces in their natal homes), the unnecessary wedding expenses would be drastically reduced in consideration of support that the girls may require in any sort of eventualities.    

Finally, I am afraid, unless the above mentioned majors are operationalized,  even mass marriages would not be of much help,  if women are being deprived of first by her natal family and then by her matrimonial family of her basic rights to fulfill her potentials.  But first things first. we need to really look closely into what can be done in her own natal families so as not to deprive her of her political and economic rights( at the family level, decision making power is an act of political empowerment).

I do not know if any award is LCI Admin. have for "MOST INSPIRATIONAL THREAD FOR A BETTER SOCIETY" and if any such awards is there I recommend the same for Aishwarya jee for this thread.

Kind attention to LCI Admin. 

Correction for my earlier posting 

Please read it as : at the outset let me say I agree with SS 

i think in hindus,daughters have equal inheritance rights now,though i am unaware about other religions....i know many educated families where girls are also getting equal property share

still....if some parents are not keen on giving them property share,good education,etc it's not becoz they discriminate againstt their daughters,but becoz of the pressure that they will hv to spend lakhs on marriage...so they try to save money...for this parents cant be blamed at all....we cant make them paupers by forcing them to spend on education,marriage,gifts to be given even after marriage,property share to daughter,etc,etc,etc...

secondly,daughters in middle,upper middle and elite calsses are already getting educated v.well........so are their parents relieved from spending so much on marriage??????

if present times are compared with older times,we will observe that people expect more decent marriages now...now marriage costs have risen;not reduced,even though today's women are working,well educated etc....still this problem continues......even domestic violence has not reduced

education of girls alone cant help.....it's not that doctor,engineer or CA girls have v.simple dowryless marriages...

its the indian mentality that has to change...the mentality that girls' parents have to spend,serve the grooms' relatives very well,give a decent marriage etc

if we expect that only girls shud protest against this overspending to curb this practice....then also we are wrong...if we dont have stringent laws...girls' cry will not be heard......society has to help her also

suppose a girl is harassed by inalws....and there are no laws to come to her aid....can her crying or protesting alone make any difference???

only wen she is aware of her legal rights and inlaws know that they can be punished for harassmentr,they will be afraid to torture her......its that simple.

Ram Samudre - DRF

thanks for kind words once again......

it's people like u who motivate me to write like this

Final Words :

Here are some aspects of social life/ weddings to consider.

1. Social life in busines families and other kinship situations is closely linked to economic relationships too. Its improtant to udnerstand the entertaning budget of corporates in India is not very high, as social relationships follow kinship , rather than economic relationships (different from a society like a country like the US. A fair comparison would be to combine wedding budgets with entertaining budgets in both situations, make a currecy adjustment,create a per wedding cost unit, and my guess is there would be relative parity...(something to think about the effect of different social dynamics)

2. Marriage is a little different in the Indian from the casual entering into a disposable relationship in more "advanced" socieities.

Do we spend more on durable goods vs disposable goods? Are there any studies on this consumer behavior?

Important to factor this into the marriage discussion as the everage person in the west must budget for more than one marriage in his/her lifetime and hence there would be prudence in keeping costs a little more balanced. Also the cost of dating must be linked to the cost of mating. The pressure to find a mate induces dating costs, which is a huge industry. That cost must be included in comparing "wedding project costs" or if we would like a bigger framework, a "mating project cost"

Not costing prep while costing projects is very faulty. This can include phone calls, eating out, gifts, etc etc....These costs do not exist in the monstrous proportions in a traditional framwork, as they do in a more modern world.

Indians are traditional type people

The Hindu reformer Dayanand Saraswati of the Arya Samaj (which has a big following among Hindu Punjabis) instituted a very simple wedding ceremony. However, like a rock sitting in pond for a thousand years whose core never becomes wet, the Punjabis still insist on throwing grand, lavish weddings and demanding hefty dowry.

In South India, female infanticide is not as bad as it is in North India. Amartya Sen drew a line which shows how much more endemic infanticide is in the North and West in comparison to the South and East. From what I understand today, however, the female/male ratio is declining in Tamil Nadu as well. So the South may yet follow the barbaric North.

A shortage of brides means that many men go without wives, and may lead to the reinstituting of bride price, which is the very opposite of dowry. Men in Harayana (which has a female/male s*x ratio as bad as Punjab) are headed to Bihar and elsewhere looking for brides.

On an interesting side note, in some quarters of Nigerian society the guy does have to pay the woman's family a "bride price", and they even have a special "wine" ceremony where the guy practically has to fight his way through a crowd of her relatives (who pretend he's not good enough for the bride), get down on his knees and beg her to let him marry her.

I think that punjabi marriages are very beaqutiful  yeah they may cost more than what people in other countries spend on their weddings but think about it  there are soo many customs and traditions that the Punjabi's take into account.

One thing that i do not agree with is the fact that is the bride's family that takes on most of the expenses ..... the groom's family only pays for the gifts that they buy the girl, their ladies night and the reception, if they choose to hold a reception

This is the best way to deal with the cost of the wedding. The bride's parents, groom's parents and the yet to be wed couple can pool in and pay for the wedding. All of them can contribute in some or the other way and meet the entire cost of the wedding.

In such an arrangement where everyone pays, having the wedding that you had dreamt of does not seem so difficult. This is simply because financial constraints are easily resolved as everyone is putting in the money together.

Here in the only difficulty is to divide the expenses between the two groups. Deciding who pays for what can be a little problematic. You can either decide the expenses depending upon the financial status. For instance, if the groom's parents are wealthier, they can pay more.

Since the costs are going to be divided, you might just have to give up some decisions. In cases, where the wedding costs are shared you will have to take everyone's opinion into account and then take appropriate decisions.

Since these days most people are placed in well earning jobs, funding their own wedding is not that difficult. Both the bride and the groom can pool in their own savings and incur the entire wedding expense ob their own.

The benefit of such a paying arrangement is that the couple gets to decide what and how they want things at the wedding. Whether you want a beach wedding or a grand affair at some ballroom, as long as you are paying for it, it's fine.

But, a downside is that you may end up depleting all your savings. And your parents also might just feel a little out of the entire wedding process.