Dowry to Alimony: How Marriage Became a Transaction In India
Riya Kumari | Nov 03, 2025, 15:42 IST
Indian wedding
( Image credit : Pexels )
When you next attend a wedding, pause: behind that smiling bride and groom, familiar rituals and glittering gifts lies a ledger. On one side: the value assigned to the marriage’s beginning. On the other side, invisibly, sits the value assigned to its possible ending. What will you carry forward? The ledger or the covenant?
Marriage was once whispered as two souls choosing each other. Today, it feels like two families negotiating terms. We dress it with rituals, flowers, holy fire, but behind every smile is a quiet calculation, What are we giving? What are we getting? First comes the dowry, the “gift”. Later, if things break, comes alimony, the “return gift”. And somewhere along this journey, we forgot that human beings are not items to be exchanged. This is not philosophy. This is what every daughter fears, every parent denies, every son feels but never says. It is the story of how love got priced, how relationships became receipts, and how hearts turned into economics.
They call it a tradition, a blessing, a token of love. but the truth is simple: dowry is the bride’s first test of worth. You are not a person first, you are someone's liability, someone's expense, someone's status symbol. Rooms fill with relatives whispering numbers disguised as “expectations”.
Gifts are offered like apologies for being born a daughter. What should have been two people choosing each other, quietly turns into two families calculating loss and gain. And yet, she smiles. Because in this society, even the caged bird must sing to make the cage look beautiful.
Once the rituals end, the transactions don’t. The girl enters a new home, not as a companion, but as someone who must earn the acceptance she was already “paid” for. Her gold is locked away, her voice is softened, her dreams are negotiated. She is told to adjust, to endure, to serve. Because so much was given for you.
Meanwhile, the boy carries his own silent burden. He might have never asked for dowry, but he inherits the guilt of receiving it. Love feels heavy when wrapped in unpaid dues. He cannot say it out loud, but he knows: this marriage wasn’t born from choice, it was bought by tradition.
If the marriage that began with gifts cracks open, society again reaches for the calculator. Alimony, money to compensate for tears, years, sacrifices. It is meant to be justice, but often becomes revenge disguised as legality. The girl who was once a gift given away is now a debt to be settled. The boy who once received becomes the one who must repay. And again, the heart is replaced by a ledger.
Dowry said, “Here, take care of her.” Alimony says, “Here, now release her.” In both cases, the woman is the object, never the voice. And the man, whether giver or receiver, remains shackled to a system he never truly chose but always lives inside.
We say we are progressive. We share quotes on equality. We ban dowry by law, but we keep it alive in whispers. Marriage today feels less like two hearts meeting and more like two families signing a long-term contract:
You give your daughter. We give our last name.
You give jewellery. We give a home.
You give sacrifice. We give stability.
And if it all fails, we go back to court to divide the ruins. What no one admits is this: love cannot breathe in a room where dignity must be bargained for.
Dowry is not just money. Alimony is not just compensation. They are proof that somewhere, society forgot how to value a person without attaching a number. Maybe the real revolution is not refusing gifts or refusing alimony, but refusing to treat marriage like a deal that must always benefit someone. What if a daughter wasn’t sent off but allowed to go free? What if a son wasn’t expected to receive but to stand as an equal? What if a marriage began not with gold or property, but with two people who had nothing to trade, only themselves to offer?
Because love is not the gift. Nor is freedom the return gift. The real gift is this: choosing someone without owning them. The real return is this: letting them go without calculating what was lost. Till then, every wedding is a market, every divorce is a refund, and every heart is a ledger waiting to be closed.
The Wedding Didn’t Start With Vows, It Started With a Price Tag
Bride
( Image credit : Pexels )
They call it a tradition, a blessing, a token of love. but the truth is simple: dowry is the bride’s first test of worth. You are not a person first, you are someone's liability, someone's expense, someone's status symbol. Rooms fill with relatives whispering numbers disguised as “expectations”.
Gifts are offered like apologies for being born a daughter. What should have been two people choosing each other, quietly turns into two families calculating loss and gain. And yet, she smiles. Because in this society, even the caged bird must sing to make the cage look beautiful.
After the Wedding, Love Is Expected. But Debt Arrives First
Marriage
( Image credit : Pexels )
Once the rituals end, the transactions don’t. The girl enters a new home, not as a companion, but as someone who must earn the acceptance she was already “paid” for. Her gold is locked away, her voice is softened, her dreams are negotiated. She is told to adjust, to endure, to serve. Because so much was given for you.
Meanwhile, the boy carries his own silent burden. He might have never asked for dowry, but he inherits the guilt of receiving it. Love feels heavy when wrapped in unpaid dues. He cannot say it out loud, but he knows: this marriage wasn’t born from choice, it was bought by tradition.
When Love Breaks, the Negotiations Begin Again, Now It’s Called Alimony
Divorce
( Image credit : Pexels )
If the marriage that began with gifts cracks open, society again reaches for the calculator. Alimony, money to compensate for tears, years, sacrifices. It is meant to be justice, but often becomes revenge disguised as legality. The girl who was once a gift given away is now a debt to be settled. The boy who once received becomes the one who must repay. And again, the heart is replaced by a ledger.
Dowry said, “Here, take care of her.” Alimony says, “Here, now release her.” In both cases, the woman is the object, never the voice. And the man, whether giver or receiver, remains shackled to a system he never truly chose but always lives inside.
People Don’t Marry Each Other Anymore. They Marry Expectations, Families, Bank Accounts
Indian marriage
( Image credit : Pexels )
We say we are progressive. We share quotes on equality. We ban dowry by law, but we keep it alive in whispers. Marriage today feels less like two hearts meeting and more like two families signing a long-term contract:
You give your daughter. We give our last name.
You give jewellery. We give a home.
You give sacrifice. We give stability.
And if it all fails, we go back to court to divide the ruins. What no one admits is this: love cannot breathe in a room where dignity must be bargained for.
Perhaps We Don’t Need More Laws, We Need More Humans
Because love is not the gift. Nor is freedom the return gift. The real gift is this: choosing someone without owning them. The real return is this: letting them go without calculating what was lost. Till then, every wedding is a market, every divorce is a refund, and every heart is a ledger waiting to be closed.