EDITORIAL

Painful reality that continues

It is disgusting indeed to see that married girls often suffer humiliation, sometimes of the worst degree on issues of dowry, although most of them are just helpless because their parents are poor. Such incidents have been more frequent in the neighbouring country where brides coming from poor homes are known to have been killed or burnt alive for disappointing their inlaws in the matter of dowry. But in Pakistan perhaps it may be a relatively new phenomenon, although persecution of brides, leading even to divorce between the pairs is not uncommon. These incidents bring into sharp focus the evils of the curse of dowry, which has now become an integral part of the marriage contract, with ruinous economic effect on the parents of girls. It takes them years to clear the debts incurred to marry a daughter. It should not be difficult to visualise the plight of parents of poor or average means of income with more than one daughter to marry. This may be one of the factors responsible for forcing an increasing number of people to take recourse to illegal, immoral and criminal means of earning. But there are many bride-grooms and their parents for whom marriage provides an opportunity to enrich them at the cost of girls parents in distress. Nothing could be more callous, ignoble and mean. But whatever the reasons behind the demands for dowry, it is an unmitigated evil, which must be eliminated from the society. Obviously, it would require an all-out crusade to achieve their objective. Under the prevailing circumstances, there is little that can be done by anybody to rid the society of this curse. Moreover, the universal demand for dowry is nothing but a reflection on the rising amoral materialism in the society which had drifted too far away from its spiritual and moral anchor which Islam could provide, had it been the spring-board of the existing socio-economic and political fabric of Pakistan.
As it is, Islam is very clear on the issue of dowry and marriage customs. Most of the customs, which have now become almost a necessary part of marriage ceremonies in Pakistan have been adopted by Muslims as a result of their interactions with other communities in the region.
Viewed in the perspective of increased materialism in life, it is well within the individuals right however to make as much money, and as fast, as possible. There is a mad scramble in the contemporary Pakistani for getting rich fast, at any cost. If the notoriously corrupt politicians and legislators, and officials, who are ever ready to stoop to the meanest level to get favours from the powers that be, are reckoned as the social barometer, the greedy and shameless seekers of dowry would not only stand exonerated but should actually be considered victims of the existing socio-economic and political set-up itself, which has now become immoral and corrupt to the core and, for that reason, quite powerless of eradicating social evils like dowry whose victims must wait for their day of deliverance for a spiritual and moral revolution in the society when all the un-Islamic practices and customs-which have given rise to a host of economic and social problems of the common man-would be automatically banished from the society.