Even when dowry demands are recorded, families often handle the matter quietly, leaving many cases unreported.
Published Sep 19, 2025 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Sep 19, 2025 | 7:00 AM
Representational image. Credit: iStock
Synopsis: In Tamil Nadu, dowry harassment claims young women’s lives, with cases like Priyadharshini and Preethi highlighting relentless demands for gold and cash. Despite high literacy, dowry persists across castes, fueled by social status and lavish weddings. Activists criticise lax enforcement of the Dowry Prohibition Act, urging systemic change to break the cycle of abuse and protect women from this deadly tradition.
Priyadharshini, a 28-year-old woman, died by suicide in Madurai on 1 September, allegedly due to dowry harassment. Her family said they had given over 100 sovereigns of gold during her marriage to E Rubanraj in September 2024 but were unable to meet further demands. Police have registered a case against Rubanraj and his parents.
Less than a month earlier, on 5 August, 24-year-old Preethi, a resident of Tiruppur, died by suicide after reportedly facing harassment from her husband’s family. She had married Satheeshwar September 2024, with her family giving 120 sovereigns of gold, ₹25 lakh in cash, and an Innova car.
Relatives said her in-laws later pressured her to bring ₹50 lakh from ancestral property sales. 10 months into the marriage, Preethi returned to her mother’s home, where she was later found dead.
On 30 June, just over a month earlier, 25-year-old Logeshwari died by suicide at her parents’ home near Ponneri, four days after her wedding.
Police said her in-laws demanded an additional sovereign of gold and an air conditioner after already receiving jewellery at the time of marriage. Her husband, E Panneer, and his mother were arrested, while other relatives are absconding.
Only two days before that, on 28 June, 27-year-old Rithanya was found dead in Tiruppur district, 78 days after her wedding. A postmortem confirmed she had consumed pesticide.
In a voice note to her father shortly before her death, she accused her husband Kavin Kumar and his parents of harassment and abuse over demands for 200 more sovereigns of gold, despite her family already providing 300 sovereigns, a luxury car, and a wedding costing several crores.
Barely two months before these incidents, on 3 May, 23-year-old Stephy Matilda was found dead in Manimangalam near Chennai. While police initially recorded the case as a sudden death, her relatives submitted call recordings alleging dowry harassment and casteist abuse.
A postmortem later confirmed severe injuries to her head and lungs, and on 6 June, police arrested her husband Rajmohan on charges of murder.
These cases from Tamil Nadu reveal that dowry-related abuse and deaths continue to cut across caste, class, and education in Tamil Nadu. Despite the state’s noticeable literacy rate and awareness campaigns, young women are still pressured into marriages where dowry expectations persist as a marker of family prestige.
Tied to social status, both the bride’s and groom’s families often measure their worth by the scale of the wedding, the jewellery exchanged, and the display of wealth. For women, this translates into lifelong pressure, often beginning in adolescence, with an unspoken message that their value in marriage depends on what they can bring.
The tragedies of Priyadharshini, Preethi, Logeshwari, Rithanya, and Stephy underline an uncomfortable reality: even in an educated society, dowry remains a currency of status, often paid for with women’s lives.
Kavitha Gajendran, women’s rights activist, traced the roots of dowry harassment in Tamil Nadu to social patterns.
“Dowry harassment and deaths are something that Tamil Nadu, even across India, has faced for decades,” she said.
She cited incidents from the 1980s and 1990s, when ‘kitchen gas blasts’ often resulted in the death of daughters-in-law, highlighting an early pattern of abuse. “It was a trend at that time,” she said.
“This trend was connected to female infanticide and feticide,” she explained. Families often saw the birth of a girl as a financial burden, leading to female foeticide. Even for those who survived, dowry demands remained as an ongoing source of pressure once they reached marriageable age.
This cycle continued post-marriage. Kavitha noted that daughters returning home were often met with stigma: “It was a shameful thing; endure it, they will not be bad, it will get better. That is what eventually leads them to get stuck, where they endure violence, abuse, and sometimes death.”
She emphasised the psychological toll on women who never feel a sense of belonging, describing how abuse, verbal harassment, and isolation from in-laws reinforce their vulnerability.
She connected these historical trends and patterns to modern times, noting that while awareness programs and NGOs exist, the cycle persists, but in a different way. Dowry remains deeply embedded in the perception of women as economic burdens, and harassment continues across caste and class lines.
“Nowadays people are all about the amount of gold they wear, the lifestyle they lead, the brands they buy. Marriage is the biggest scam ever, a huge business industry where the lavishness showcases social position,” she said.
She noted that rising incomes and modern technology have increased dowry demands: “Hundreds of sovereigns of gold, cash, vehicles, and still it’s not enough,” citing cases where even 100–300 sovereigns or luxury cars failed to satisfy in-laws.
Social media and show-off culture intensify the pressure. Kavitha mentioned pre-wedding shoots, Instagram reels, and extravagant food spreads that emphasise public display over personal meaning.
Families often feel compelled to comply: “Everyone has seen the marriage, a lavish show, now if you are going to break it, it is going to be an embarrassment. So stick to it and live, that is what the parents say in many cases.”
Dr P Suseendhira, Researcher and Political Activist, explained that the roots of dowry in Tamil Nadu and India can be traced to Brahminical practices, noting that Brahmins historically practiced ‘Kanyadaanam’, giving the bride with jewels, land, or other valuables.
This practice, she explained, was gradually adopted by other upper-caste groups through Sanskritisation, where local communities imitated Brahminical customs to elevate their social status.
“As per the Indian marriage system, it doesn’t mean that two individuals are getting married. It’s between two families. Those two families are fixing these particular contractual systems,” she said.
Further explaining that even lower-caste groups eventually adopted dowry to assert their social and economic position, she said this adoption is not uniform; the amount and type of dowry often vary according to a family’s wealth and social background, but the social contract aspect remains constant across caste groups.
This historical embedding has made legal prohibitions largely ineffective. “Every caste group is practicing without any barrier,” she said, emphasising the systemic persistence of dowry across Tamil Nadu’s social landscape.
Despite high female literacy rates in Tamil Nadu, education alone has not reduced dowry practices.
“The nexus between dowry practice and education is that women, even educated ones, consider the jewels or property they bring as a form of social security,” she explained.
This mindset gives women dependency and perceived validation in their marital home, making them less able to challenge dowry demands. Adding to the point she said, this dependency reinforces a cycle of acceptance even in educated women.
Women, even when aware of legal rights and property laws, often comply with dowry demands to ensure their security and belonging within the family, where women are treated as secondary citizens, moving from their parental home to the husband’s home without true agency.
Dr. Suseendhira addressed the role of men in sustaining dowry practices, noting that even younger, educated men rarely reject the system. “No man is ready to say, ‘I don’t want any single paisa from your family,’” she said. Instead, men often encourage family members to demand wealth, viewing it as enhancing their family’s status and financial security.
She noted modern dowry trends where money is framed as business capital. “Some men say, ‘I’m going to start a business; you can be my partner,’” she explained, emphasising that this remains coercive, with women paying for familial acceptance and security.
Even when the approach is indirect or framed as voluntary, “It’s up to your wish, like how much jewels you can give… but later the control will be taken by the men’s family,” she said, showing how dowry continues to enforce patriarchal control.
She said that male complicity is not just individual but structural. The acceptance and encouragement of dowry by men, especially in upper and educated classes, ensures the persistence of this system despite legal prohibitions.
She also highlighted the role of media and digital platforms in reinforcing lavish weddings and the social prestige tied to dowry.
“We are all well aware about the Ambani family’s wedding, posh weddings and engagement, even managements and photo shoots, everything crosses lakhs and crores,” she said, emphasising how weddings have become an industry.
She explained that corporates, matrimonial sites, and digital platforms profit from and perpetuate this spectacle. “Matrimonial sites encourage same caste marriages, and of course, it is entertaining the posh weddings,” she noted.
Netflix coverage and social media amplification, she argued, normalise illegal dowry practices and lavish displays, glamourising wealth at weddings while masking underlying coercion.
This glorification of crime, she stressed, exerts social pressure on families to conform. A wedding is no longer just a union of two people but a status symbol measured by expenditure, luxury, and visibility. Families feel compelled to participate in this spectacle, which in turn sustains the dowry system.
She highlighted legal and monitoring gaps that let dowry persist. “Giving dowry and receiving dowry is a crime. But according to the social contractual system, no one is ready to say this is a crime,” she said, noting that grand weddings, where women are decked in gold, reinforce the practice, as such displays are widely admired.
Suseendhira highlighted the gap between law and reality, Kavitha Gajendran stressed the urgent need for enforcement.
“We have laws that criminalise dowry. We have the Dowry Prohibition Act, but they are not enforced. We still see female infanticide, child marriages, and rising dowry deaths,” she said, criticising government and police inaction and pointing out that dowry continues because marriage has become a profitable industry.
She explained how lavish weddings fuel a “supply chain” of businesses and social pressures that discourage enforcement: “Every move is monetised. The system will not allow the collapse of this business industry”.
Even when dowry demands are recorded, families often handle the matter quietly, leaving many cases unreported.
Comparing Tamil Nadu with Kerala in terms of education, she cited the Tushara case in which a woman was starved to death over dowry disputes, despite having a child.
“Even in states with higher literacy and employment, dowry deaths are prevalent. Self-respect marriages and Tamil cultural practices have historically offered alternatives, but awareness is limited,” she said.
Without strict monitoring, transparent reporting, and education on gender equality, dowry harassment will continue to claim lives. Kavitha urged the state to prioritise law enforcement, awareness programs, and social support structures to protect women from both economic and psychological exploitation.
(Edited by Amit Vasudev)
