WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

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S. SUDHA –S. KHANNA –S. I. RAJAN –R. SRIVASTAVA
Contrast this with the account by a 45-year-old woman of middle
socioeconomic status:
“Wedding expenses are borne by the girls’ family. Main
categories of expenses are: marriage celebration, banquet,
marriage hall, ornaments for the bride, etc. For a ‘decent’
marriage we invite a lot of people [...] Otherwise people
will say ‘oh that marriage took place without anybody’.
Minimum two payasam [a type of sweet dish] should be
there [...] people are giving 24 types of curries.”
This view was widely echoed among the participants, including
young unmarried persons. As Eapen and Kodoth (2003:14) argue,
“gender-based inequality in the context of marriage practices
emerges [...] by norming specific kinds of consumption [...] By
generating expectations on a wide scale through lavish marriages [...]
women are objectified in dangerous ways.” Thus, the emergence of
costly wedding celebrations paid for by the bride’s family indicates
another way in which the position of daughters is becoming vulnerable
in the modern Nayar family.
5.3. Dowry and women’s inheritance
Our data revealed the penetration of the custom of dowry into
the Nayar community, and a distinction between dowry and women’s
inheritance. In India, dowry interpreted as groom-price (dahej or
varadakshina; gifts given to the groom and family at marriage, barred by
law) can be distinguished from bridewealth (streedhan; gifts given to the
bride at marriage, that remain her property, permissible under law). In
practice it is difficult to distinguish between these two. In patrilineal
India, dowry is seen as pre-mortem inheritance that the bride receives
at marriage, often in lieu of her share of immovable property, though
today several laws guarantee daughters their share of property, their
enforcement is difficult. Dowry had been customary among patrilineal
groups in Kerala, such as Christians or Namboodiri Brahmins, but has
spread to all other groups as a more ‘market’ approach to marriage is
replacing customary practices (Eapen and Kodoth, 2003). With Kerala
land reforms and dismantling of matrilineal tharavadus, ancestral
property was divided equally among Nayar sons and daughters, an
inheritance practice that still continues. However, daughters are now
also given substantial dowries at marriage, comprising jewellery, cash,
household goods, etc., which usually pass to the control of the in-laws.
Dowries are seen as distinct from, and in addition to, female
inheritance.