A Grand Wedding, A Lifelong Debt
How Kashmir’s Poor Are Paying the Price of a Fat Wedding?
In the narrow lanes of Srinagar city and far-off villages, behind freshly painted houses and borrowed wedding lights, a disturbing trend is evident. It does not make headlines like politics, yet it cuts much deeper into the everyday lives of ordinary people. This tragedy is the ever-growing demand for dowry, a social evil that we all condemn in public, but too many still practice in private.
For a poor family in the Valley, the word “shaadi” has stopped meaning happiness. It now means loans, gold rates, furniture lists, and sleepless nights. Years before a daughter comes of age, parents begin to save every rupee they can spare. The mother hides small amounts in tins of rice and flour, the father takes extra work, brothers migrate outside the state seeking jobs, all for one purpose: to collect enough for the day the girl gets married. Not because they want to show off, but because the groom’s side, and society at large, has quietly turned marriage into a market.
We have reached a point where a girl is judged not by her character, her education, or her values, but by the size of the dowry she can bring. Car, cash, gold, expensive clothes, furniture, and even demands for a separate flat - all are placed like items on a shopping list. Many of these demands are not direct. They come wrapped in polite hints, comparisons with other marriages, or taunts about “reputation”. But their impact on poor families is brutal and very real.
To meet these unspoken expectations, parents sell land that once fed the family. They mortgage shops, cut down orchards, and empty whatever little savings they had for old age or emergencies. Some take heavy loans from banks and private lenders, entering into a cycle of debt that they may never escape. After the wedding music fades, they are left counting instalments and interest, while society congratulates them for a “grand” marriage.
The emotional cost is even higher. Daughters grow up watching their parents constantly worried about money. Many feel guilty simply for existing, for being a “burden” that must be married off with dignity. Some delay their education or careers because the family cannot afford both studies and the savings needed for a lavish dowry‑driven wedding. In extreme cases, engagements break because demands are not fulfilled, leaving deep scars on the girl and her family – scars that our gossip only makes worse.
Tragically, this is happening in a society that proudly calls itself educated, religious, and conscious of social justice. Every Friday from the pulpit, every social media post during wedding season, and every public speech at functions loudly condemns dowry. Yet, in drawing rooms and negotiations, many of the same people become active participants in the very practice they denounce. Our hypocrisy has turned into cruelty for the poor.
Dowry is not just an outdated evil custom; in today’s Kashmir, it has become a tool of economic and psychological oppression. It is widening the gap between rich and poor, pushing vulnerable families into poverty, and poisoning the sacred institution of marriage. If we continue down this path, we will raise a generation that sees marriage less as a bond of love and more as a financial transaction, a deal to be struck between two sides.
The question we must ask, honestly and urgently, is simple: how long will we allow our daughters’ futures to be priced in cash and gold? Until we as a society decide that enough is enough, that a groom who demands dowry is unworthy, that a simple marriage is honourable, and that our dignity lies in rejecting this culture of greed, poor families in the Valley will keep paying a heavy price for our silence.
(Author is a social activist and researcher)
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