Marriage, at any cost.
The changing dowry practices in Sri Lanka’s northern province
In Sri Lanka’s northern province Tamil women face strong cultural incentives to marry. The social pressure is not unusual: “A woman without a husband has no life” (aanillaatha pennukku vaazhvillai) goes a common proverb. But more concerning is a new shift in northern province marriage practices, reflected in the changing trends in dowry — the gifts, cash or property provided to a bride by her family on marriage. [1],[2]
Why practice dowry?
Southasian communities exchange dowries for different reasons; it functions as inheritance, allows women to contest power-relations in their marital homes, demonstrates social status and is considered auspicious. [3],[4],[5] Strong socio-cultural norms surround the practice, which one anthropologist describes as “the establishment of a hierarchical alliance between the two families involved.” [6],[7]
Prior to 1911, when laws pertaining to the Jaffna peninsula were amended by the British and husbands were allowed to dispose of their wives’ property, the dowry provided economic security to women. [8] Dowry had useful functions in pre-British India too. Veena Talwar Oldenburg, the author of Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime, claims that in its pre-colonial form dowry was a ‘safety net’ and source of support for young brides. In pre-British India, dowry was the means by which women gained their share of inheritance and under Hindu customary law, a woman had an indisputable right to own, control, and dispose of her own wealth, and rights to a share of her father’s property. [9]
The many reasons communities exchange(d) dowry notwithstanding, preliminary research shows that marriage in Sri Lanka’s northern province has become more challenging over time and dowries more pervasive and costly.
Female insecurity and the ‘marriage squeeze’
With continued militarization in the post-conflict period, sexual harassment, intimidation and violence against women has been rising. [10] In that context, a husband is thought to provide protection to single women that the state does not. The protection — write Gowrinathan and Furman — often emerges in the form of a hasty or ill-advised marriage, where the pressure to marry can lead women to marry much older men. [11]
When I asked why this generation of Tamil women was under so much pressure to marry, Shanthi, a young Tamil woman who works at a library in Jaffna town replied, “under LTTE rule there was more protection.” Shanthi was referring to prohibitions against sexual abuse strictly imposed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A decade after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, Tamil women still feel unable to walk safely at night. [12]
And yet, despite the cultural and pragmatic demands for marriage, women now find it more challenging to find suitable partners. Census data indicates that the northern province faces a ‘marriage squeeze’ — where women of marriageable ages greatly outnumber marriage eligible men. [13]
From 1953 to 1971, the relative number of men for every 100 women at popular marriageable ages across Sri Lanka declined and it has continued to decrease since then. [14] One reason for this mismatch is that men were more likely than women to be recruited as soldiers in Sri Lanka’s civil conflict and so to be casualties of war. [15]
Sri Lanka is not the only country to experience this phenomenon. China’s one-child policy (1979–2015) led to a lack of brides in successive generations — a marriage squeeze of the opposite nature. [16] In the northern province, census data indicates that the ratio of males to females may be even lower than national averages. [17]
The marriage market
The application of economic models to social phenomena like marriage can be useful. Chicago-school economist Gary Becker was the first to advance an economic theory of marriage — his study of the economics of the family culminated in Treatise on the Family (1981). [18] In his approach, the decision-makers (those who decide whether to get married, to whom and at what costs) are rational actors that want to maximize their gains in a metaphorical marriage market. [19]
Within this hypothetical marriage market, dowry can be considered “the price of a good match in the marriage market” since it equalizes the value of marriage services exchanged by the households of the bride and the groom. [20] Indeed, in the comments section of a 2001 Tamil Guardian article a female author writes, “It [the dowry system] must be viewed as a system of women acquiring, and men selling, the attributes of a husband… The market should know what the going rate is for a doctor, lawyer or candle-stick maker.”[21]
When demand for grooms increases (for example, because security fears increase the desire to marry) or when grooms are in scarce supply (for instance, in the case of the marriage squeeze), economic principles tell us that dowry, or the amount the bride’s family would be willing to pay to secure a marriage with an eligible man, should increase too. Applying this demand and supply logic to the northern province helps explain why the household of the groom can now claim higher dowries from prospective brides.
Rani Balendran from Point Pedro town in Jaffna district tells me that 30 years ago women only paid a hundred thousand Sri Lankan rupees in dowry. Now, even if they have jobs and steady incomes, women must expect to pay dowries of 2 million rupees, 5 million if the groom is educated and has a good career, for example, as a doctor or engineer. This does not include jewelry, property and donations to the groom’s family. According to Thabitha Hoole, a young doctor from Mannar, even if parents have been preparing to provide dowries, it is difficult to meet new demands. Prospective grooms can demand houses in Jaffna or Colombo, depending on where they would like to live.
This wasn’t always the case. Historically, inheritance of a dowry in Sri Lanka may have depended on the financial position of the bride’s family. [22] Indeed, in the past, lower and middle-class Sinhalese and Tamil families often did not provide dowry at all. [23], [24] Drawing on Robert Knox’s account of captivity among Kandyan villagers, anthropologist Stanley Thambiah infers that “the transfer of dowry [was] not an essential part of the marriage ceremony as such.” [25]
Within the Tamil community, dowry was usually only affordable for the upper classes and even within these classes flexibility was permitted depending on the availability of assets and the number of children. [26] However, dowry is becoming ubiquitous. A Jaffna resident claims, “nowadays, even in love marriages, a dowry is required…all families have to provide it however rich or poor they are.”
Toxic dowries
On December 30th 2019, a young woman from Jaffna who was recently married, killed herself. [27] Police investigations are yet to determine the cause and the motivations are impossible to know, but several Tamil websites and an anonymous poem circulating on social media (see below) speculate that the death was caused by excessive dowry demands. [28] Even if the young woman’s death had no relation to dowry, the responses to the tragic event remind us how deep anxieties related to dowry can be. Such anxiety will only be exacerbated during times of economic depression or downturn, such as the current period.
In a ten million rupee dowried house,
Unable to sleep for one moment,
Unable to eat one meal,
Why has the woman who married a doctor,
With no medicine for mental illness,
And no peace of mind,
Become an ill person,
Brought to the sorrowful state of suicide?
If mothers who arrange marriages for sons,
Want to keep their children under their influence,
Why do they send them to wedding halls?
It is the ruinous dowry system,
That has ruined this beautiful face.
(An anonymous poem that circulated on the web soon after the tragic death of a newly-wed Tamil woman in 2019. Translation by author.)
While dowry death or fraud has been recorded in newspapers, its frequency is difficult to estimate since it is not categorized separately by law enforcement authorities. [29] In India, the National Crime Records Bureau reported 8233, 8083, and 8455 dowry death cases in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively. [30], [31] Dowry-related crime can also manifest as dowry fraud — where a woman is robbed of her dowry and then abandoned. A young Tamil woman from Manipay told me that her friend had married a well-known man in her village, one from a ‘good family,’ only to have him disappear overseas.
The forms of financial anxiety that can be induced by unreasonably high dowries were depicted as early as 1977 in Dharmasena Pathiraja’s film Ponmani. [32] A son from an upper-caste Sri Lankan-Tamil family works tirelessly to provide dowries for three sisters; an eldest daughter is emotionally abused by her husband when her father cannot make timely dowry payments; and two younger unmarried daughters, whose dowries must yet be procured, are the victims of parental resent. A qualitative analysis of songs and conversations of women in northern India found that “the chief reason that a daughter brings sorrow to a house, and the reason why, according to village women, songs are not sung at the birth of a daughter, is the anticipation that it will be necessary to give much in dowry.” [33]
As a form of commodification, dowry is less explicitly problematic than its counterpart the bride price — practiced in countries like China, Thailand, Nigeria, Uganda and South Sudan — where a bride is procured from her family at a pre-negotiated price. [34] Nonetheless, when it is effectively mandatory, dowry can invoke feelings of indignity and shame. Thabitha Hoole tells me that her friend, matched with a prospective groom she liked and who liked her in turn, was angry at her parents for not providing a dowry sufficiently large to secure her marriage. Another friend, she recalls, was furious when her parents tried to sell their only property to provide a dowry.
In Rabindranath Tagore’s 1891 short story “Profit and Loss,” a father sells his home to provide his daughter with a dowry. His daughter Nirupama responds — “Do you think your daughter has no dignity? Am I a money purse only, that as long as there is money, I have value!” [35] These feelings of shame, anger and indignity were reiterated by the women I spoke with in the north, who perhaps felt their value as individuals reduced to monetary or material transactions.
The history of anti-dowry movements
The practice of dowry has been heavily criticized since at least the colonial period. In 19th century Britain, the momentum generated by the success of the abolitionist movement propelled anti-dowry movements. [36] The language and practices of Victorian campaigners — such as the catchphrase ‘social evils’ — was absorbed and replicated by Indian reformists and used to characterize practices like dowry. [37] When the British East India Company (BEIC) first learned of female infanticide in 1781, they attributed it to cultural motives such as dowry costs and wedding expenses. [38], [39], [40] This theory about matrimonial excesses and the subsequent ill-treatment of women aligned well with existing colonial theories of barbarism and the decadence of Southasian subjects. Typecasting matrimonial practices in this way was also convenient. When BEIC administrators were charged with causing famine, it was easier to blame wastefulness and matrimonial excessiveness than to acknowledge the genuine needs of small landowners. [41]
Anti-dowry thought came to occupy Indian public discourse during the colonial and post-colonial periods through close exchanges between Victorian and Indian reformists. [42], [43] Thinking on subjects like dowry spread from India and Britain to Sri Lanka. For example, Sri Lankan reformists like A.P De Zoysa, who described dowry in Lanka as a “widespread social evil” were likely influenced both by their overseas educations and the flurry of anti-dowry thought in India. [44]
To get rid of the pernicious effects of dowry — Indian activists advocated for a dowry ban. In 1961, Indian anti-dowry campaigners would successfully pass the Prohibition of Dowry Act. Unlike in India, however, Sri Lankan resistance to dowry has been less vociferous. First, though no official statistics exist, a scan of newspaper reports suggests there may be less crime associated directly with dowry. Second, an outright ban of dowry was resisted in at least two instances: when a two-year resolution to ban dowry was rejected at the State Council in 1938 (though no Sri Lankan women were represented), and when Tamil communities resisted attempts by the LTTE to ban the practice. [45], [46], [47]
The LTTE, it should be mentioned, forbade or discouraged dowry in Jaffna and Killinochchi and leaders of the LTTE like Adele Balasingham (formerly a leader of the LTTE’s women’s wing) campaigned against the ‘dowry evil’ in the 1990s. [48], [49] Compared to India, however, few if any Sri Lankan reformists advocate an outright ban of dowry today.
A weak anti-dowry movement in Sri Lanka
The muted response may be due in part to differing colonial responses to dowry in the two countries. While Indian anti-dowry campaigns were propelled by the plausible link between dowry and female infanticide, Sri Lankan anti-dowry campaigns would lack that moral ammunition. [50] In Sri Lanka, the British rarely attributed female infanticide to dowry — perhaps because, as suggested by historical archives, Sri Lankan infanticide was not gender specific. [51] Infanticide was made a punishable offence by the Dutch colonial authorities in 1789 and by the Kingdom of Kandy in 1812, eventually dropping out of the Ceylonese reproductive repertoire altogether. [52], [53]
Dowry was also likely to be more pernicious in India, given differing inheritance laws. Scholar Veena Oldenburg argues that a cluster of British policies reconstituted dowry from its status as safety net to a ‘noose’ in India. [54] Although inheritance laws in Sri Lanka were also reconstituted by the British, the impact was less severe. Stanley Thambiah notes “it is clear that the Thesawalamai [the law which prevails for Tamil marriages in northern Sri Lanka] invests women with stronger property rights than the Indian shastric systems. Whereas in northern Sri Lanka women inherited land, Indian systems restricted them to moveables, and only exceptionally to land.” [55]
As mentioned previously, in 1911 the British amended Thesawalamai to allow men to dispose of their wives’ properties; however, men still require their wives’ signatures to do so. As husbands are not able to unilaterally alienate matrimonial property under Thesawalamai, their wives may face less insecurity and vulnerability to dowry crime than their Indian counterparts. [56], [57]
While anti-dowry movements have not had the same momentum in Sri Lanka, the northern province marriage squeeze and security fears have raised the costs of dowry. Events like the tragic death in December 2019 only reaffirm the need for fresh discussions around the practice.
A panacea for the dowry problem?
A simple dowry ban, however, may not be the answer. The 1960 Indian ban on dowry is notoriously ineffective and many families have found innovative ways around the law. [58] That a dowry has been requested or provided is also difficult to prove. Subsequent Indian penal code amendments have also been criticized as having low conviction rates. [59] Moreover, if high dowry prices in northern Sri Lanka are simply a symptom of the marriage squeeze and gender insecurity — a ban will not address the underlying problem.
The approach, as always, must be context-specific. The state must record dowry induced crime separately, enhance security and the perception of security in the northern province for Tamil communities (and Tamil women in particular), and generate economic opportunities for women — so they can improve their status in the marriage market if they choose to marry and are not reliant on their families for dowry.
More than one woman I interviewed expressed deep shame that she was unable to marry due to what she imagined were her own inadequacies — financial or otherwise. A basic demographic analysis, the persistence of the ‘marriage squeeze’ for instance, demonstrates that this is simply not the case.
[A shorter, better version of this research was first published with Caravan Magazine, and can be read here: https://caravanmagazine.in/gender/changing-dowry-practices-in-sri-lanka]
[1] In his 1973 book Bridewealth and Dowry, anthropologist Stanely Tambiah notes that an important aspect of dowry is that it is pre-mortem (unlike other inheritance), it forms part of the conjugal estate, and is often used to secure a favorable marriage.
[2] Veena Talwar Oldenburg, the author of Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime, claims that in its pre-colonial form dowry provided women means to avoid vulnerability when separated from their natal families and relocated with their husbands, as per custom, after marriage. Despite assertions that a woman’s dowry effectively belongs to her new family after marriage, a variety of ethnographic sources make it clear that several women kept their dowry (jewels, cash and other possessions) in locked trunks or safes out of the reach of their husbands.
[3] In Listen to the Heron’s Words, which focuses on north Indian communities, Gloria Goodwin Raheja claims that “giving generously without regard to what one receives was crucial in maintaining and augmenting one’s izzat (prestige) in the village and among one’s kinsmen.”
[4] According to Gloria Goodwin Raheja, dowry is also associated with auspiciousness. The ‘gifting’ of a daughter along with gifts for herself and for the people of her husband’s house assures the well-being of the donor.
[5] In “Dowry: To Ensure her Happiness Or to Disinherit Her?” Madhu Kishwar argues that social norms and expectations for dowry can be so strong that gifts at weddings are effectively mandatory — even if not legally required.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Af Øivind Fuglerud, “The Housewife and the Soldier: Tamil constructions of womanhood in the age of migration”, 2002.
[8] Hellmann-Rajanayagam, Dagmar. “Female Warriors, Martyrs and Suicide Attackers: Women in the LTTE.” International Review of Modern Sociology, vol. 34, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41421655. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.
[9] Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. Dowry murder: the imperial origins of a cultural crime. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
[10] “Sri Lanka’s Conflict-Affected Women: Dealing with the Legacy of War.” Crisis Group, 31 July 2017, www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/289-sri-lankas-conflict-affected-women-dealing-legacy-war.
[11] https://www.deviarchy.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-Forever-Victims-Tamil-Women-in-Post-War-Sri-Lanka.pdf
[12] “Sri Lanka’s Conflict-Affected Women: Dealing with the Legacy of War.” Crisis Group, 31 July 2017, www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/289-sri-lankas-conflict-affected-women-dealing-legacy-war.
[13] Marriage eligibility is based on a number of factors. In Treatise on the Family (1981), Gary S Becker defines the ‘marriage market’ as one in which the decision to enter into marriage is one where individuals will choose to maximize their utility gains. Applying this logic to the Sri Lankan ‘marriage market,’ reveals some key trends. First, men of a marriageable age prefer to marry women younger than themselves, so Sri Lanka’s marriage market is divided into an older male cohort and a younger female cohort. Second, there is stigma attached to women marrying men that are much less educated or unemployed. (According to the 2017 Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey male unemployment rates in the northern province are higher than already high national averages.) Third, social costs also apply to mixed-ethnicity and mixed-caste marriages. Of course the definition of ‘marriage eligible’ has also changed over time — with women in the north now appearing to marry outside these preferences — older, less educated, unemployed and sometimes even of different caste and ethnic backgrounds.
[14] Dallas S. F. Fernando argued as early as 1975 that the availability of males and females at marriageable ages was an important factor regulating the number of marriages in Sri Lanka. Using census data, he showed that at the popular marriageable ages the relative number (or ‘supply’) of men for every 100 women across Sri Lanka declined from 1953 to 1971. If you extrapolated Fernando’s methodology to the year 2016, you would find that the supply of men for every 100 women has only continued to decrease across the island.
[15] Another reason, unexplored in this research is the impact of migration — the author has not explored whether Tamil men were more likely to migrate than women in the post-conflict period.
[16] See: https://www.businessinsider.com/one-child-policy-created-china-marriage-squeeze-2015-10
[17] 2017 Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey, Department of Census and Statistics, http://www.statistics.gov.lk/LabourForce/StaticalInformation/AnnualReports/2017-2ndVersion
[18] See: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1992/becker/biographical/
[19] Becker, Gary S. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981. Print.
[20] Sonia Dalmia, and Pareena G. Lawrence. “The Institution of Dowry in India: Why It Continues to Prevail.” The Journal of Developing Areas, vol. 38, no. 2, 2005, pp. 71–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4192976. Accessed 20 Oct. 2020.
[21] Af Øivind Fuglerud, “The Housewife and the Soldier: Tamil constructions of womanhood in the age of migration”, 2002.
[22] Yalman, Nur. “On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 93, no. 1, 1963, pg 25–58, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2844332.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Veena Oldenberg also notes that families weren’t historically coerced to partake in dowry. She finds that “nowhere was it treated as the prerogative of the groom and his family to demand specific consumer goods and large sums of cash for the groom’s business, education or mobility; it was voluntary and depended on the ‘pecuniary circumstances’ of the bride’s parents.” This observation, however, is based on a very specific subset of villagers in the Punjab region and might not hold in other Southasian or Indian communities.
[25] Goody, Jack & Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja, 1929- Bridewealth and dowry. University Press, Cambridge [Eng.], 1973.
[26] Jayatilaka Danesh and Kopalapillai, “The Impact of Displacement on Dowries in Sri Lanka”, Centre for Migration Research and Development, Brookings-LSE, February 2015.
[27] “Woman’s Body Found in Kokavil, Jaffna.” Hiru News, 1 Jan. 2020, www.hirunews.lk/english/231402/womans-body-found-in-kokavil-jaffna.
[28] See: http://newjaffna.com/2019/12/31/10223/; https://www.ibctamil.com/srilanka/80/134234; http://newjaffna.com/2020/01/04/10353/; https://bit.ly/3jcRf2f
[29] “Small Dowry Kills Bride”, Sri Lanka Mirror, Friday, July 19 2013. Stable URL: http://archive.srilankamirror.com/news/9067-small-dowry-kills-bride
[30] Jadhav, Radheshyam. “Cases of ‘Dowry Deaths’ and ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ — Times of India.” The Times of India, India, 31 July 2015, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Cases-of-Dowry-Deaths-and-Cruelty-by-husband-or-his-relatives/articleshow/48298626.cms.
[31] “India: More than 10000 cases registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act during 2014”, Asia News Monitor, Thai News Service Group, Bangkok, Jan 18, 2017.
[32] Dharmasena Patthiraja, Ponmani, 1977.
[33] Raheja, Gloria G, and Ann G. Gold. Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, pg 78.
[34] French anthropologist Philippe Rospabé argues that bride price no longer entails the purchase of a woman, but is purely symbolic. However, in many traditions a bride price is the required transactional price used to obtain a bride from her family.
[35] Tagore Rabindranath, “Profit and Loss”, Selected Short Stories: Translated with an Introduction by William Radice, Penguin Classics, 2005.
[36] In “L. Zastoupil, Rammohun Roy and the Making of Victorian Britain”, Linda Colley and David Brion Davis argue that “abolitionism fostered a sense of moral superiority that gave Briton confidence in a mission to lead the world. The idea that Britain should set a moral lead to the world would prove lasting.”
[37] Lynn Zastoupil. Ram Mohan Roy and the Making of Victorian Britain. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pg 252, “Slavery and Sati”.
[38] Bhatnagar, Rashmi Dube, Renu Dube, and Reena Dube. Female infanticide in India a feminist cultural history. Albany: State University of New York Press, pg 38, 2005.
[39] Some scholars maintain that dowry was not the main reason for the preference of sons or the murder of daughters. For example, Veena Oldenburg asserts that by assigning Punjabi men specific property rights, the British elided traditional female entitlements to familial lands and masculinized the economy in a way that increased preference for sons. Oldenburg also argues that a rigid taxation system forced many peasants into poverty and directly impacted the nature of dowry.
[40] Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. Dowry murder: the imperial origins of a cultural crime. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2003, pg 25.
[41] Ibid.
[42] The Pall Mall Gazette was a British newspaper founded in 1856. In a 1988 article titled “Marriage Reform in India,”, Brahmin scholar Pandit Sivanath Shastri, appeals to the “sympathy of every true-hearted English man and English woman” to help “lift the load from the lot of India’s degraded womanhood.” The article, originally published in the Pall Mall Gazette, panders to pro-reform British sentiment. Like the British, Shastri argues that female infanticide is attributable to excessive dowry payments for brides. Sastri Sivanath “Marriage Reform in India” Pall Mall Gazette, Times of India, September 4 1888, pg 7.
[43] Lynn Zastoupil. Ram Mohan Roy and the Making of Victorian Britain. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pg 252. “Slavery and Sati”.
[44] Zoysa advocated for dowry abolition after his higher education in the UK in 1921.
[45] “Poor Support For No-Dowry Motion”, Malaya Tribune, 18 November 1938, pg 22. http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/maltribune19381118-1.2.170?oref=article-citation
[46] “No dowry” motion rejected. (1938, Nov 05). The Times of India (1861-Current), Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/325607157?accountid=11311
[47] The LTTE attempted to abolish the practice, claiming the custom demeaned women and was not in step with egalitarian society. The Tamil community did not look on this practice favourably, and dowry usually continued though concealed — Project on Internal displacement quoting “The international crisis group.”
[48] Hellmann-Rajanayagam, Dagmar. “Female Warriors, Martyrs and Suicide Attackers: women in the LTTE.” International Review of Modern Sociology, vol. 34, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41421655. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020.
[49] Ann, A. (1994): Unbroken Chains: Explorations into the Jaffna Dowry System. Malathi Press, Jaffna.
[50] Scholars dispute whether or not dowry was linked to female infanticide. For example, Veena Talwar Oldenberg, author of Dowry Murder, argues that there was no female infanticide committed or brides burned on account of dowry demands in Punjabi villages studied by ethnographers in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. She cites another scholar failing to find evidence for this causal relationship in Himchali villages. According to her, in pre-British India, there is also little mention of exorbitant dowries causing the ruin of families.
[51] Although there is early evidence of infanticide in Ceylon in European travelogues (specifically between the 1660s and the 1820s), Fabian F. Drixler & Jan Kok note that “none of the reports of Ceylonese infanticide that we have gathered dwell on its sex-selective nature….In Kandyan folk poems collected in the twentieth century, son preference is not prominent either. Moreover, the institution of uxorilocal marriage made a male heir less important than in strictly patrilineal societies.”
[52] While the authors of the study focus on deliberate family planning in two Sinhalese districts (Udugaha and Mende), their review of 18th century European travel-writing does not uncover colonial attribution of female infanticide to dowry or wedding costs in any part of the country. (According to the authors, some early-nineteenth-century European observers identified poverty as an important motive for infanticide in Ceylon). Thus, as far as this author is aware, there is not yet any conclusive historical evidence that corroborates a causal relationship between dowry and infanticide in Sri Lanka.
[53] Fabian F. Drixler, Jan Kok, “A lost family-planning regime in eighteenth-century Ceylon”, Taylor and Fransic Online, 18 Mar 2016, pg 107.
[54] Veena Oldenburg argues that pre-modern dowry “was consonant with the premodern notions of rights in land.”
[55] In Bridewealth and dowry (1973), anthropologist Stanley Thambiah notes “the Dharmhashastras and other classical legal treatises of India distinctly portray the notion of female property (stridhanam) as complementary to the more heavily accented notion of male property…the same texts have a fine regard for female property, some of which, if not all, being transmitted exclusively through females.” Though British judges were able to access traditional Hindu legal literature since the 1770s, Hindu law was only administered by the courts in the 1860s. At this time modifications and amendments to traditional Hindu law generated a new body of Anglo-Hindu law.
[56] The most persuasive reasons I have found for differences in perceptions of dowry in India and Sri Lanka, can be found in Tambiah’s comparison of Indian and Sri Lankan property laws in “Dowry, Brideswealth and Women’s property rights”:
1. Thambiah notes that “In Thesawalamai chidenam passes first to the daughters (and the remainder to the sons), under Indian classical law…the stridhanam is composed of different categories which are transmitted in different directions.”
2. Unlike in India, Sri Lankan newly-weds (Tamils and Kandyan Sinhalese) could live either with the wife’s parents or the husband’s parents. Thus, unlike in India, women were given both moveable dowries and immovable dowries like property and land.
3. For Kandyan Sinhalese, “rights in paddy land (the most valued property) is conveyed equally to sons and daughters. Tambiah notes, “the aristocratic or prestigious form [of marriage] among the Kandyan approaches the orthodox form in patrilineal India — with the exception that a woman’s dowry may include land among the Kandyans. But the ordinary form among the goyigama appears to be a weaker and abbreviated form of the orthodox Indian version. This weakening of prestation exchange is accompanied by a strengthening of female property rights…”
[57] This author acknowledges that there are the significant differences in legal traditions and colonial practices in Sri Lanka and in India. India did not exist as a single country before British East India Presence in the 1800s whereas Sri Lanka was colonized by the Dutch, Portuguese and British from 1505 onwards. Other key difference include codification of personal law. Tambiah notes that “the traditional legal customs of the Jaffna Tamils were for the first time committed to writing and codified under Dutch colonial inspiration in the early 18th century. The legal customs of the Kandyan Sinhalese were similarly codified by the British in the first few decades of the 19th century.” This stands in contrast to traditional Hindu Law. Tambiah inform us that the Dharmashastras were said to be based on the Smritis (attributed to sages like Manu) no earlier than 200 BC and no later than AD 200.
[58] Pulitzercenter. “The Dowry System in India: Is the Trend Changing?” Pulitzer Center, 19 June 2019, pulitzercenter.org/projects/dowry-system-india-trend-changing.
[59] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-arrests-under-anti-dowry-law-without-magistrates-nod-SC/articleshow/37661519.cms
