Marriage And Social Security? Rise In Dowry Cases Show The Two Don't Come Together For Women

Nearly a month has passed since 26-year-old Nikki Bhati was allegedly set ablaze and killed by her husband over dowry. A video of the attack, recorded by her sister, spread rapidly across the internet. Bhati’s husband and in-laws have since been arrested, but a question lingers: how will justice truly be served?

Bhati’s case captured headlines, but countless instances of quiet, insidious dowry harassment go unnoticed. One such case is that of Anjum*.

On her very first night at her in-laws’ house, Anjum was put in a room with no electricity, no fan, not even a glass of water.

Parched and lost in a house which she was supposed to call her new home; she struggled to find her way to a water cooler.

“I had to find my way around the house, barely managing my lehenga. My hands were trembling. I remember being so scared—I was just a young girl away from her home,” Anjum recalled.

She had just turned 17 when she left Meerut, her hometown, for Sikandarabad after marriage. As a newly-wed bride, she had imagined a happy life with her husband and future children.

But her life turned out very differently from what she had once pictured.

When asked why her in-laws mistreated her, she said it was because their dowry demands had not been fulfilled. In her hometown, she said, the question “kitne ki shaadi hogi?” (how much will the dowry be?) was routine.

In her case, the intermediary who arranged her marriage alliance in 2008 had assured her in-laws that they would receive ₹1.51 lakh in cash, a car, and other items. However, not all of these could be provided.

According to Anjum, the unmet dowry demands became the root of her suffering—abuse that continues to this day.

She endured domestic violence at the hands of her husband and in-laws. It has been nine years since she fled Sikandarabad; today, she lives in Delhi with her three children. “My life was in danger,” she said.

“They attacked me with a knife, opened fire at me, they poisoned me,” she recounted, her voice faltering as tears welled up in her eyes. “I have spat blood on the road,” she added, saying that it was always neighbours who rushed to save her.

“Both my eardrums have been ruptured because of my husband’s thrashings,” she said, scrolling through pictures of bruises on her body that she collects as proof.

However, Anjum has not been able to file for divorce. She cites many reasons: social isolation, constant intimidation by her in-laws and, most importantly, the lack of support from her own family. 

“I keep telling my brothers that I can raise my children on my own. I don’t need their money—all I need is for them to say, 'Leave him'," she said. Instead, every time, they tell Anjum one thing: a woman must have a husband.

“Not once has my father said that he will take his daughter with him,” she said, recounting hearings at the local panchayat, wishing her father had told her that she was not a burden. “This is what my in-laws take advantage of.”

Anjum claims that all her gold jewellery was sold by her husband to fund his sister’s wedding. “I have a seven-year-old daughter. I won’t have anything to give her at her wedding,” she said, having internalised that dowry remains a prerequisite for marriage.

Her ordeal is not an isolated case—official data shows thousands of women face similar abuse each year.

India has a law against the practice of dowry, The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. In it, "dowry" means any property or valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly­ 

(a) by one party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage;

b) by the parents of either party to a marriage or by other person, to either party to the marriage or to any other person, at or before.

Despite this clear prohibition, India recorded 34,477 dowry deaths between 2018 and 2022, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports, last published in 2022.

While dowry deaths declined by about 10 per cent in 2022, compared with 2018, the total number of cases registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act (not just deaths due to dowry) tallied to 63,546 over the same years.

In 2021, there was a 31 per cent increase in cases registered under various provisions (not just dowry deaths) of the Dowry Prohibition Act as opposed to 2020.

Though the high numbers raise serious concerns about the effectiveness and enforcement of existing laws, the Ministry of Women and Child Development claimed in 2021 that the Dowry Prohibition Act and the Indian Penal Code have adequate provisions to tackle the menace. “Presently, there is no proposal to amend the Act further,” it said in a press release.

At the same time, in 2025, says National Commission for Women data, 158 dowry deaths and 2,699 dowry harassment cases have already been reported.

Most dowry [demand] cases are not reported, said Monika Tiwary, senior counsellor at the NGO, Shakti Shalini, which works for survivors of gender and sexual violence. Explaining why many married women find no way out even when their lives are in danger at their in-laws', she said, "Many

married women and mothers choose to go back to abusive households because of financial constraints and the lack of support from their natal families.” For instance, out of the at least 120 dowry cases she handles annually at Shakti Shalini, only 10 or 12 women even wish to learn about their legal options—and even those cases don’t always reach the courts.

She said that in the decade that she has worked at the NGO, very few survivors have come forward to admit that they have endured “dowry harassment”, as the entire practice has become normalised in society. Identifying harassment also does not have much to do with the educational qualifications of women. 

Tiwary said, “One survivor was being abused by her husband, and the demands from his family, and his own expectations, never seemed to end, even after sever or eight years of marriage.”

Whenever the husband visited his wife’s house, he demanded "compensation".

“'Tell your mother she has to compensate for it, and then only I’ll attend your brother’s wedding,' he would say," said Tiwary. 

There were always such demands: That he didn’t get decent clothes, or didn’t get anything good. "When the husband wanted to start a business, he would tell his wife to ask for money from her father," said Tiwary.

Or, he would seek compensation for his business expenses or losses.

The woman ultimately decided to separate from her in-laws and take custody of their daughter, who had also suffered abuse at the hands of her father.

However, Tiwary noted, dowry demands do not vary based on socio-economic factors, or whether the groom is a teacher, an IAS officer, or a doctor in a government hospital. It is also not influenced by whether the man getting married lives in India or abroad. The demand for dowry mostly stays consistent.

“The groom’s family believes it is their right to receive gifts from the bride's family. And it's not for the bride: It's for the groom and his family.”

In terms of the legal options available for women, the law, Tiwary believes, will not change much unless people are aware of the ills of dowry, and the laws that prevent it. Besides, the law does not account for the many ways in which entrenched patriarchal systems ensure dowry persists, without being labelled as such.

“There are subtle and sarcastic comments passed, which are usually ignored, but can lead to serious and continuous 'gift' demands,” Tiwary said. Besides, the woman’s natal family often carries the burden of dowry-related demands throughout the marriage, rather than it being a one-time occurrence. 

Demands also get woven into cultural differences between the two families. For instance, even if a bride belongs to a community where ‘Karwa Chauth’ is not observed, she is taunted to observe the custom: which involves gifting expensive items to her in-laws'. Tiwary recalls a woman whose husband’s family demanded 14 silver utensils, and the further justification was that the mother-in-law also gave her [married] daughter utensils for her in-laws.

“Gift-giving” is treated as a way to maintain relations between the two families, but in practice this exchange—whether at the birth of a child in the woman’s in-laws’ family, weddings, or even deaths—is usually one-sided: from the wife's side of the family to her in-laws' side of the family. 

Dowry, in other words, far exceeds its legal definition. For example, during wedding preparations, the groom’s family members will tag along with the bride’s family to shop—not to share the expenses, but to select expensive items. The bride’s family ends up paying, regardless of the budget they had in mind. There is also the concept of “guests ko acche se welcome karna. (keep the guests from the groom’s side happy.)” 

Not only do these cases go unreported, they do not even come under the purview of dowry harassment.

If the law ignores the social and cultural barriers that stop women from complaining about dowry demands, legal experts say, making dowry punishable itself discourages the woman’s family from coming forward to report cases.

“Decriminalising someone who is giving dowry will definitely help more people coming forward to report such cases,” says Chitranshul Sinha, advocate-on-record at the Supreme Court of India.

He explained that the concept of dowry is a matter of prestige in many communities in India. He spoke of incidents where people take measuring tape to car showrooms and compare the length of different models, just to see which one was the biggest. “It wasn’t about quality, brand value, or features—the focus was simply on size. Owning one of the biggest cars becomes a status symbol in dowry,” he said.

There needs to be awareness programmes in rural societies to stress that giving dowry is not about prestige, advocating against this practise that continues to plague women in these communities.

He said that making the law more stringent is never the solution, since the issue of dowry is primarily a cultural one. “Legislation can always be a tool, but change has to be generational,” Sinha said.

The increase in reporting of dowry cases is, in itself, a positive sign, suggesting that people are gradually overcoming the stigma attached to dowry cases. Furthermore, Sinha said, it is crucial to educate girls and women, as financial independence is integral to breaking the dowry practice. 

As for Anjum, who is not educated, she is dependent on her husband for financial support — which is both negligible and unreliable. At times, she said, he withholds money for months. 

With two of her children still in school and her eldest, now 15, having dropped out, she has almost no source of income. She relies heavily on the NGO United For Humanity for assistance and admits she is deeply fearful about the future of her children.

For over a year and a half, Anjum has been receiving treatment for depression at the All-India Institute for Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. With no support from the family in which she was born and raised, her anxieties often keep her awake through the night, to the point where she forgets to eat.

“My husband tells me he will never divorce me, nor give me money. He wants to keep me in limbo.” 

(Anjum’s name has been altered to safeguard the individual’s privacy.)