How Dowry Fuels Violence Against Women In India

(Photo by संजीव बोंडे via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

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Content Warning: This article contains stories regarding violence against women, sexual exploitation, and suicide.

Imagine the happiest days of your life turning into a financial burden because of a demand for gold, jewellery, a car, or cash. For many women in India, dowry can turn marriage into a list of expectations, financial pressure, harassment, and violence.

India banned dowry more than six decades ago. The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 prohibits giving, taking or demanding dowry. Punishment for demanding dowry is imprisonment of 6 months to 2 years.

Despite the law, women are still killed over dowry. Three days before she died, a woman in Noida, Delhi, reportedly called her brother and told him that she was afraid that her in-laws might kill her. On September 12, 2026, police reported a case where Pooja, a recently married 25-year-old, was allegedly pushed from the terrace of her home. Her family told the police that her husband had been demanding 30 lakh rupees in cash and a car as dowry.

Pooja’s death is just one more case in a country where dowry has been illegal for more than 60 years. And yet, the incessant demands continue.

A Wedding With a Price Tag

Dowry is not simply a collection of wedding “gifts.”

Under Indian law, dowry refers to property or valuable security given directly or indirectly, in connection with a marriage. The law also distinguishes between dowry and presents without a demand, meaning that not every gift exchanged at an Indian wedding falls under the legal definition of dowry.

In reality, what may be described as a gift can become an expectation, and an expectation can quickly turn into a demand. This practice has survived despite being illegal since 1961. India’s National Crime Records Bureau recorded 6,156 dowry-related death cases in 2023. In the same year, police registered around 136,234 cases of cruelty by a husband or his relatives, the largest category of crimes against women recorded that year.

The figures do not mean that every case of cruelty is connected to dowry. Dowry-related violence does not always begin with physical abuse. It can start with humiliation, pressure, and repeated demands for money from the bride’s parents. It can also involve a woman being threatened or pressured to return to her parents and ask them for more, or to stay there. The figures do, however, show the scale of violence women report within marriage, and these are just the cases that actually got reported. 

In India, stigma and societal pressure can also make it difficult for women and their families to speak out. There can be pressure to protect the family’s reputation, avoid bringing shame to the woman or her parents, and, in some rural cases, women do not even know that the law exists. 

As a result of this fear and lack of education, reported cases may not reflect the full scale of dowry-related abuse. And sometimes, it ends with her death.

When the Demand Turns into Violence

A 2026 report by The Guardian found out that the registered dowry deaths in India rose from 1,841 in 1998 to 6,516 in 2022. The study also argues that public and political attention to dowry-related killings and suicides has declined even as the cases increase.

That decline in attention is part of the problem. When a woman dies inside her marital home, the story can easily become another family tragedy. But the circumstances leading up to that death can involve months, if not years, of pressure that outsiders never see.

In another case reported by Hindustan Times in 2024, Sneha Reddy, an 18-year-old, died by suicide after her family alleged that her husband and mother-in-law repeatedly demanded a motorcycle and gold. Her father told the police how his daughter had called him crying and described the harassment she was experiencing at home.

These cases show how a demand made at the beginning of a wedding can continue long after the ceremony is over. And the violence does not always look the same.

Dowry is tied to expectations surrounding marriage, family status, and gender. The pressure is often placed on the bride’s family way before the marriage even begins. And for some families, refusing a demand can mean risking the marriage itself.

That is why ultimately the issue is not about what a family can or cannot provide, but how systematic patriarchal norms weaponize financial expectations against women and their dignity, making them a commodity. 

When Women Become The Commodity

Another thing that bridges from dowry is human trafficking. These are the cases where the economic transactions surrounding marriage grow darker as women and girls become a commodity. 

In 2018, The Guardian reported on women and girls being trafficked across India and sold as brides. Bride trafficking involves young girls and women being recruited, transported, and coerced into exploitation. In this case, consent is removed.

One of the survivors was identified as Tahima. She was 13 when she was taken from Assam to Haryana; she believed that she was travelling to Delhi but was instead sold into marriage to a man almost 30 years older. Her own drawing of what had happened included the figure 50,000 rupees, $743.28 CAD, the price at which she was sold.

Another woman in an interview with the Guardian said that she was beaten by her husband and his family and was told that they “owned” her because they bought her. Many women are bought at a young age to carry the children of those who were unable to. 

“I bought Najida because I did not have children from my first wife, and having children is important”  is a statement from Samsuddil, a 41-year-old man, who paid 10,000 rupees for Najida, a woman in her 20s. 

The report also found that the women who were trafficked into marriage would also face domestic and sexual exploitation, unpaid labour, and violence. 

Cross-State Trafficking

In a separate investigation in 2014 reported that bride trafficking had become a business in parts of Northwestern India, linking the demand for women to severely “skewed sex ratios” in states such as Haryana. The report described brokers travelling to poorer states to find women and girls who could be sold as brides.

In March 2026, police in Telangana rescued two women who had allegedly been taken to Madhya Pradesh and sold into forced marriages for 2.5 lakh rupees each. According to the report, brokers allegedly posed as family members and presented the women to two businessmen as prospective brides before accepting the money for the marriages.

The case is still ongoing, but it shows how easily exploitation can be hidden behind the appearance of marriage.

 More Than a Wedding Expense

The problem is that people often discuss dowry as a tradition that is passed down from one generation to another. But “tradition” should not paint these demands as harmless.

India has had a law against dowry since 1961. Yet, women are still dying in cases where their families allege dowry harassment. And at the end of this exploitation, women are being trafficked and sold as brides.

These are not all the same problems, and not every arranged marriage or a wedding gift is an example of abuse. The problem begins when a woman’s marriage becomes conditional on what her family can provide, and when refusing or failing to provide it puts her at risk.

A wedding is supposed to mark the beginning of a life together. However, for too many women, the price demanded for that life can be much higher than money.

Edited by Lubaba Mahmud