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Bride burnt to death for failing to bring motorbike in dowry.

Woman poisoned to death over dowry.

Mother kills minor daughters, self with acid after husband disallows her from fasting.

Girl set ablaze by mother for marrying the man of choice.

As I sat down reading the newspaper and pondering how conservative is the society we all are the inhabitants of. The mores which are optional or just an expression of love are no more than a burden. The self-made parameters which you religiously justify are actually obstacles. The dignity you claim to preserve by restricting the young dreams is disparaging. The honor you think is in by veiling your daughters is no more than a wall between her and success.

Won’t it be difficult for the parents to give dowry when it is out of their hand? I tried to convince how we shouldn’t continue this anymore but no one was willing to understand. Nobody had the courage to step ahead and put an end to it. Is it necessary for the parents to give gifts and follow the self-made lethargic mores and why has it become so necessary to follow them?

The liberality we all pretend to have, where does it go when we look down to people not offering us dowry. Our education is worthless until the time we don’t eradicate the imbecilic rituals and concepts from our society. The social norms we have to obey until the time we die. As an inhabitant of the same orthodox society, I ask how we can dwell in such a society where baseless mores are constantly being obeyed yet no one has the courage to get up and stop them.

Often times when reading any type of social issue, women are mostly victimized. Whether its dowry or honor. The perception which we’ve fabricated of considering women in an inferior position or men in superior was propagated by no other than us. We gave it a new height in different ways and now when things have gone out of hands we are looking people to blame for. But even after the assassination, the woman is blamed. She wasn’t covered. She provoked him. She seduced him.

These are the statements we come across daily. But wait. We aren’t educated, right? Had we been these practices would have been eliminated. All these ideologies are equally parallel to the literacy rate of our country, till the time we don’t get rid of these evil customs we aren’t going to evaluate. Even looking at the circumstances from a religious perspective doesn’t justify the immorality.

The girl when nurtured since childhood is taught to stay quiet. We have the resilience to overcome any type of torture or domestic violence but the moment when we choose to stay quiet instead of speaking for ourselves that’s when we lose battles. We cage ourselves because if we speak it will not only hurt our dignity but also give an opportunity to people for gossip. We endure it because we think we deserve it.