“Are Marriages Becoming a Financial Transaction these days?”

A few days back I was watching this newly hyped show of one of the legendary Khan’s of Bollywood tinsel town. This Khan has recently started a new series of philanthropy with one of the leading television channels.  Well this literature is not about this particular series nor am I planning to bore you with details on it, as I know half of you who read this would be following the show.

It was though for the first time that I was watching the show and at the end of the show Khansaheeb asks a question on the public domain which we are supposed to answer with a yes or no by sending an SMS to a special number, and in this manner, doing some philanthropy for our telecom service provider also.

Well I too wanted to answer this question of his, but wanted to answer it in a detailed manner. Hence I thought just giving a Yes to this answer would not be the justified opinion.

The question that he was asking in this episode was “ARE MARRAIGES BECOMING A FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS THESE DAYS?”

Well my answer to this particular question is of course a big big YES, but as every coin has two different sides (unless it’s a Sholay coin), this question, or to be precise my answer has two different aspects attached to it.

The first one being the most popular one- DOWRY. Guys this term or this phenomena is still prevailing in the Indian culture. Even Mr. Khan gave very good details about the same. Any NGO or other institutes in favour of eradicating dowry would give you many details about the ratio of dowry cases present in India. This justifies half of my answer of saying YES MARRAIGES ARE BECOMING A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION.

The other side of this question, which is not much into media or not taken care by any NGOs is the Financial Transactions done for breaking marriages. Yes guys I am talking about the divorce maintenances or the alimonies which parents of the bride are happily looting from the groom or his family.

In recent past, I have seen many marriages happening just for the sake of breaking it and getting alimonies out of the husband’s pocket.  A few wives or the so called wives also dare enough to break a marriage relationship within a day or two of marriage and with the help of the female biased Divorce laws, legally get handsome money from the groom, which is almost equal to his two to three years’ salary.

When talking about dowry, people say how can a person take money from his father –in –law and how can even his parents support him in doing so? And yes it is very shameful to know that there are people who can really put aside all their shame or chivalry to take dowry.  On the other side, there are even daughters and parents also who are not ashamed in looting divorce alimony from their son –in-law. These parents very well support and motivate their daughter in doing so. But there aren’t any figures or facts’ regarding this in any website or any materials, as it is hard to track the number of false divorce cases registered in the family court.

I was born up learning the Indian culture, which said that “KanyaDaan” (getting your daughter married successfully) is the most precious deed that a parent of a girl can do. With the concept of dowry coming into picture, the scenario suggested that in order to gain the fortune of doing “Kanyadaan” you need to invest some lakhs. But with the phenomena of Divorce alimony, the term “Kanyadaan” itself is nullified. A parent who indulges in taking divorce alimony from his son-in –law is a fateful person who even after having a daughter has not got a chance of doing “Kanyadaan”. He just used his “Kanya” (daughter) as a face mask for his villainous intentions. And this to me is even more shameful and piteous then dowry.

Unlike, dowry being one factor which needs to be eradicated from a developing country like India, this factor also needs to be removed somehow.

Hence having this in mind the other half of my answer is justified. That YES MARRIAGES ARE BECOMING A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION, NOT ONLY FOR MALES BUT ALSO FOR FEMALES.

Well my main aim was just to answer the Khan’s question in a better manner and may be help him in showing some bitter truths of the developing Indian society.

Would like to end it with a very good quote said by the Khan itself while ending his show.” Apni Shaadi ko ek Atom Bomb mat banao jo kuch hi seconds mein phat jaaye, but ise ek Agarbatti banao, jiski mahek samay ke saath badhti jaaye”.

Contributed by Chirag Vaishnav(Batch 2006, IBS Bangalore)

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