by Dr Ifrah Ferooz Kawoosa
Kashmir’s culture of gifting brides increasingly resembles dowry, imposing financial, psychological and social costs while contradicting Islam’s marriage principles.
The Kashmiri tradition of “gifting” the groom and his family by the bride’s family should be called dowry, because that is what it is. Even though the word “dowry” is never used, nor is anything explicitly demanded, the expectation and peer pressure surrounding “gifting” is colossal. This linguistic gymnastics serves a single purpose: to absolve us of guilt. If we don’t use the word “dowry”, we can pretend we are not practising it. But changing the label does not change the content of the box. The social coercion, the financial haemorrhage, and the humiliation remain the same.
Failure to conform to this passé custom often invites snide remarks from the self-appointed custodians of this pathetic social practice. The custodians often invoke its voluntary nature, claiming that the bride’s family provides these “gifts” as a token of love for their daughter. But if that were the case, the practice would not be as rampant as it is across all economic strata. The argument of choice falls flat if we honestly ask ourselves: “If there were no social approval or disapproval attached to this decision, what would I choose?” It is compliance born out of fear.
If a custom is so widespread that there are serious social implications attached to not practising it, then in no sense of the word can it be called a choice. Often, even in “well-educated” families, these “gifts” become the yardstick for measuring the “respect” the bride shall receive in her marital home, where the bride’s worth is made directly proportional to the assets her family can provide.
If the bride and her family are shouldering the financial burden of the wedding and beyond, including but not limited to gluttonous feasts, Kokar Maaz, Hash Keanth, furniture, utensils and even bedding, then the label of “provider” attached to men becomes little more than a hollow title.
The Costs
What we casually call gifting has become a full-blown economic crisis. In Kashmir, a middle-class wedding today costs anywhere between 30 and 50 lakh, with a significant portion being this unspoken dowry. This is not spending; it is a wealth transfer that impoverishes one family to enrich another that was already capable.
Psychologically, it cements the idea that a daughter is a liability. Every copper deg and every blanket added to her trousseau becomes a reminder to the family and to society that a girl child comes with a price tag. This further skews the balance in favour of men, in an already disgustingly patriarchal society. The practice does not just affect the wedding day; it shapes attitudes for a lifetime.
From Stridhan to Extortion
Historically, the dowry system in India evolved from Stridhan, which was meant to be a voluntary practice providing financial security for a bride, into a coercive economic demand. Stridhan was the woman’s own wealth, her safety net. Over centuries, colonial shifts in property laws that denied women inheritance and modern consumerism that equated status with display turned this safety net into a noose.
The custom became a severe social issue, eventually leading to the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. Yet the law has remained largely ineffective because the society that should enforce it is the same society that practises it under a different name.
The Rversal
In Islam, marriage is a simple affair. The essential prerequisites of Nikah are mutual consent, an offer (Ijab) and acceptance (Qabul), competency of the parties, witnesses (Shuhud) and the bridal gift (Mahr). Mahr, the only financial prerequisite of marriage, is a gift given by the groom, which ironically has now been reduced to a mere nominal formality.
In Islam, the term “dowry” translates to Mahr (dower), a mandatory gift or financial obligation given exclusively by the groom to the bride. Unlike cultural dowries, where the bride’s family pays the groom, Islamic law strictly mandates that wealth flows in reverse, directly to the woman as her absolute legal and financial property. It was a revolutionary step for women’s financial independence in the 7th century.
In pre-Islamic Arabia (Jahiliyyah), a bride price (Sadaq) was typically paid directly to the bride’s father or guardian as compensation for losing her labour, treating the woman as a transferred object rather than an independent person. The Quran reformed this by making the payment a direct gift (Mahr) owned solely by the bride. It established her legal capacity to independently own, control and spend her own wealth without interference from her father or husband.
Fourteen centuries later, we have not only abandoned that revolution; we have reversed it.
We, who claim to follow that Prophet (PBUH) who married off his beloved daughter Fatima (RA) with utmost simplicity, have turned marriages into exhibitions of wealth.
Islam does not recommend an elaborate set of rites and rituals for marriage, but the imprint of regressive cultural practices on Muslim marriages in Kashmir is ostentatiously remarkable. Islam made marriage simple; we made it a transaction. We buried the Sunnah of Mahr under furniture, copper utensils and a trail of feasts.
Let’s stop sugarcoating it with labels of “tradition” and “gifts” and call it what it is — dowry. And once we name it honestly, we might finally find the moral clarity to end it.
(The author serves in health and medical education. Ideas are personal.)
