Love money

摘要

The word for dowry in Bangladesh is an English one: "demand". It is the price, in other words, that the groom's family demands in order to admit the bride to their household. In theory, such transactions are illegal in both Bangladesh and India, and limited in value by law in Pakistan. The legislators who enacted these rules (in 1961 in the case of India) thought dowries would go the way of sati, the horrific practice in which Hindu widows were encouraged to throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre to show their devotion.