Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Everything's Arranged & A Question of Dowry




"Everything's Arranged" and "A Question of Dowry" are two short stories about cultures and traditions of Indian in Malaysia.It is about arranged marriages practised and the traditions of dowry by the Indian communities.

Indian's people basically follow the arranged marriage traditions, and they consider it as something honored and great. Dating is prohibited by most families in their community. In "Everything 's Arranged" by Siew Yue Killingley, the main character is Rukumani, has fallen in love with a guy named Devanayagam. According to her parent, falling in love with guy is a big problem to them and can be considered as ruining the family's dignity. So goes this story and tells us how the poor Rukumani suffers to hide her love from her parents, how she suffers to get away from the arranged marriage her parents are planning for her, how she suffers without seeing her lover Devanayagam and worst of all what happens when she finally tells her parents about her love.

Dowry is the payment in cash or kind by the bride's family to the bridegroom' s family along with the giving away of the bride in Indian marriage. This is an important part of Hindu marital rites. Though prohibited by law in 1961, the extraction of dowry from the bride's family prior to marriage still occurs.
‘A Question of Dowry’ is about an Indian girl named Sivasothie was going to be engaged and married to a young man named Thiruchelvam that choose by the family. In the beginning, Sivasothie’s parents were preparing dowry, whereby a sum of twenty thousand and a necklace as to give it to the bridegroom’s family, when they wanted to give away theirs daughter to get married. Then, the problem arises when Sivasothie’s father Mr. Ramachandran told his wife that they cannot afford to give the dowry they agreed to give because of the disvalued of his wife’s piece of land to sell, which given as dowry when she got married to Mr. Ramachandran. After that, the future son in -law came to their house when Mr. Ramachandran telephoned him to come. As Thiruchelvam come, Mr. Ramachandran told him the truth about the dowry matters. Then, it ended up Thiruchelvam reject the marriages with his daughter because couldn’t give the dowry promised. Sivasothie feel sad and hurt because she has to forget him to become her husband after while she liked him so much.

For both cases, these traditions have been part of the Indian culture since the fourth century. In my opinion, dowry may cause the poor families suffer. They may not be able to afford dowries. In case of arranged marriage, I also do not agree with this tradition because maybe children will feel they are being forced to marry someone that they don't even know the name.


3 comments:

  1. I personally think that dowry system is not fair at all. This is because dowry system creates a barrier between the rich and poor. Dowry is set based on education background, financial status, and profession. The dowry set for a doctor and a shopkeeper vary greatly. Only the rich one able to get marry then. Many girls committed suicide because not afford to pay high dowry. Good heart is supposed to be given priority and not money.

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  2. sometimes tradition are misused by the society...we can see that the dowry purpose is like have changed with time...before: dowry is given by the girl's father to ensure his daughter could live and survive with the money...(the purpose just went for the girl) now: the dowry is requested by the male's side to know the girl's financial status..see..it is change now...(just like night and day) i say, if the purpose of dowry is not being corrected by people now, it will one day vanish just like a mitos (and it is actually happening now)

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