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Nisha
by Shayla Pandava It sounds eccentric, quirky, funny to the Western ear: Man jilted at altar; bride marries wedding guest instead. And all because he demanded a fancy motorcycle -- a dowry -- that he could show off at the wedding reception. So the future spouse had materialistic tendencies -- it turns out that all through the engagement, his family had been demanding things like gold and furniture as well. But is this a reason to leave someone at the altar? It is when you consider that this was a match made in India, which has historically had serious problems with dowry, gifts and payments made by the bride's family which theoretically help the couple get started (but which more practically "reimburse" the husband for cumbersome expenses incurred by supporting a wife). The dowry in India is another of the big secrets of the modern world. Actually, the practice is outlawed in India, and yet the law is widely ignored. For months before the wedding, families of grooms have been known to harass the bride or her family for gifts. Among the poorer classes there is even a darker side to the practice: in poor families, women are physically abused in attempts to extort more money out of her relatives, and in extreme cases women who cannot pay, seen as a burden, have been burned to death (usually within two years of marriage) by husbands, mothers-in-law, or other family members, while the crime is passed off as a "kitchen accident." And it's no rare occurrence (almost 7,000 dowry deaths were recorded in 2000). Jails in the larger cities even have "mothers-in-law wings." But last week, in the case of 21 year-old Jayalakshmi, who lives with her widowed mother in Chennai India, it was a simple case of calling off the wedding. The fact that Jayalakshmi had the courage to do this is a happy sign of changing times. Called-off weddings traditionally reflect badly on the bride and are a huge embarrassment for the family. And having called of a wedding can make the woman a "harder sell" in the future -- perhaps the reason that when a guest at Jayalakshmi's wedding reception offered to marry her, she tied the knot right then and there. Many women go through with extortionist marriages thinking things will get better, but history has shown that the extortions and demands may as easily get worse after the wedding day. Refrigerators, cars, furniture, gold, cash, on and on. And other social pressures can combine to support the dowry system. A cultural sense that the woman is a burden (not a gift, as in cultures stemming from the bride price scheme where the husband pays for the bride), the tendency of Indian mores to demand that women simply "adjust" to whatever they see as marital hardships, threats made by the in-laws to harm the bride's family if she complains, unwillingness of the police to get involved in domestic entanglements -- all these cultural influences maintain the dowry's stranglehold on Indian marriage. It's a hold that -- despite the anti-dowry law and the new women's police stations, where women can lodge abuse complaints to female officers -- has only started to loosen as women step forward and exercise the laws.

The recent trend of Indian women resisting the dowry by calling off weddings really took off in May of last year when 21-year-old software engineer Nisha Sharma called off her wedding (relying on the new protective laws that few women before her had invoked). At that time, even with the advantages and mobility of an educated, middle classed woman, Nisha was vulnerable to the dowry system. It would not be uncommon for a family like Nisha's to pay up to $100,000 to find her a husband. In Nisha's case, and unbeknownst to her, her inlaws were extorting cars and appliances from her father all during the engagement (in spite of the fact that Nisha's degree could easily out-earn that of her teacher fiancé); the inlaws (mother and son) even asked for appliances for the groom's brother. They became more demanding, right up till the day of the wedding. Minutes before the ceremony, the inlaws corralled Nisha's father behind the scenes and demanded thousands of dollars in cash. The situation grew nasty. As Nisha's father tried to reason them out of their demands, they hit him and spat on him. Luckily for Nisha, her brother witnessed the whole incident and reported it to her. Cell phone in hand, Nisha not only called off the wedding, but she called the police, and the two in-laws went to jail. From this point on, Nisha has been somewhat of a national celebrity. As recently as Valentine's day, she was still receiving home appliances and other gifts from supporters around the country. If Nisha's trend continues, it may lead to a lot more jilted grooms making the news, not to mention a few less motorcycle sales in the wedding season.