DOWRY PRACTICES AND LEGISLATION IN INDIA AND ITS RELEVANCE IN CURRENT DAYS TO MALAYSIA

In the Hindu Culture patriarchal values is hailed in which it support female inferiority (Sonia Dalmia,Pareena G. Lawrence. 2001). It is to be noted that on the Indian subcontinent,there exist a “theory of perpetual tutelage for women” which was formulated by Manu, the Hindu lawgiver. In which he preached that education for girls should be stopped. He also preached that they should be not permitted to have a public life and must restrict themselves to their homes. He reiterates that a wife ought to respect her husband as God and serve him faithfully.Even though if he were vicious and void on any account , it was to be accepted as applicable to all women. And under the ambit of these laws, women become weak and subservient. Marriages were determined by the parents. And the wives in turn lost their identity as an individual or as a member of community and became more like a commodity which could be bought and sold. And polygamy is permitted and there is no provision of divorce or remarriage for women. The status of women in both Hindu is rather intriguing and complex. At one level she is considered as a Goddess (Devi). An example is elucidated in SEETA the wife of RAMA, a personification of sweet long-suffering wife in which she is the embodiment of motherhood in which she bore a male child, thus paving her the potential to become LAKHSHMI also preconceived as the harbinger of luck. Nonetheless, she is blamed for all the ills and degradation of man’s moral and spiritually. The objective of the study is we will be examining cases on dowry in India and also visiting the current situation in Malaysia. Author will be employing the doctrinal legal research methodology.