i
saw the movie 'mistress of spices' yesterday. the spell binding heroine
i.e aishwarya rai laments that her parents were not happy (in the
movie) with the birth of a girl child as it means more 'dahej' or dowry.
that
is the bottom line. people do not want girls - not because they dont
like girls - in fact girls are more loved and loving than boys - the
point is - with girls you are forever concerned about their safety and
well being - safety from all the social ills prevalent now, where even 4
months olds are also not being spared - and well being from their husband
& their family. All this after paying a hefty dowry and phenomenal
marriage expenses.
No
amount of clamping down on sex determination centres, educating people
about gender equality or lip service about dowry bans etc is going to
help significantly increase the girl sex ratio. people dont want girls
becase of the costs and the mental worry involved. if we can accept
this fundamental fact of life then we can make things a lot better.
Therefore,
to improve the ratio of girls in the country we need to bring down the
costs of raising a girl child and marrying her off while also gauranteeing
her safety and security with a good degree of certainity.
towards
this, there are three things that could be readily done (i am sending a
more detailed letter to ministry of women and child welfare for them to
study these issues). they are
1. subsidise education
2. ensure safety and security both before and after marriage
3. reduce marriage expenses
as
this post is about lavish weddings, i will restrict myself to the third
point. as we all know, marriage expenses comprise dowry, actual marriage expenses and
post marriage gifts including the delivery expenses.
the actual marriage expenses comprise venue charges, decoration, travel &accommodation for guests and food expenses.
on
a very conservative estimate one dinner for 500 guests@1000 rupees
costs about 5 lakhs in the cities. with exorbitant venue and
accommodation charges typical marriage expenses in cities range between
15-20 lakhs. couple this with conservative dowry of 5 lakhs and 5 lakhs
travel expenses the total expenses may go upto 30-35 lakhs. How does a
common man cough out this kind of money? even if he does, it would be
from his life time savings or he would be in a life time of debt after
marriage. now picture a guy having two or three girl children. his
expenses can go upto a crore.
the
easiest way to avoid this is to avoid having a girl child. therefore
someone trying to avoid a girl child is only the symptom - the disease
is in the prevalent social norms.
while
it may be very difficult to dictatorially clamp down on dowry as the
transactions are secretive (as dowry anyway is banned) lavish weddings
could be banned as the expenses are very clearly visual and their cost
can be assessed.
in
this connection the diktat by the bohra muslim community elders in
mumbai is the way forward - where they gave a diktat that there cannot
be more than 4 dishes in a wedding and other rules to reduce the
expenditure. they also said that not only anyone who flouts these rules
but also those attend the weddings that flout rules will be socially
boycotted. at first look this step looks very regressive but is
actually a great step forward.
the govt may also consider binging a regualtion on the maximum expenditure on a wedding that can be done. this will bring a lot of relief to millions of parents of girl children and will also be a step towards increasing the girl child ratio. this may face a lot of criticism but these are the real ways for 'beti bachao' !!!!
and
what you can do - if you are really progressive and concerned and a
parent of a boy - even if you can't avoid dowry (for some reasons)
atleast go for a simple marriage as that is one money which does not go either to the bride or groom and significantly reduces the
burden on the girl's parents.
