Bridewealth and Dowry Revisited: The Position of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa and North India [and Comments and Reply]

Disorders of sex development in a developing country: perspectives and outcome of surgical management of 39 cases

“…Though wrong male gender rearing has been previously reported in some other countries [10,12,17,24], the reason for this may be related to severe virilization in a genetic female as seen in cases with Prader 4 and Prader 5 anomalies [24,25]. Alternately this tendency may be induced by the pressure to have male offspring in some cultures to secure family name, secure marriage, and to ensure reasonable inheritance [26]. This socio-cultural influence coupled with poverty and lack of education, may compel some families to assign male gender to a child with a significant phallus irrespective of the nature of the rest of the external genitalia [9,10,24].…”

Inheritance, poverty, and disability

“…Furthermore, most or all of a dowry may not be given to the bride but instead to the groom and his family (Tambiah et al 1989). It is thus debatable whether dowry should be considered a form of inheritance that could assist disabled women in obtaining economic autonomy.…”

Supply-and-demand demographics: dowry, daughter aversion and marriage markets in contemporary north India

“…Sharma 1984;Tambiah 1989) and, indeed, dowry has been a Jeffery: Supply-and-demand demographics 13 | P a g e concern in areas of northern India that have been characterised by particularly masculine sex ratios since at least the early 19 th century and that are the main locus of sex-selective abortion today. Aspects of gender politics (such as female infanticide) sometimes featured in 19 th century critiques, but commentaries often focused primarily on the indebtedness caused by compulsory displays of ostentatious generosity to honour the groom's family, selfaggrandisement and the staking of status claims by the bride's family, and fear of disgrace Gupta & Li Shuzhuo (1999) note that dowry can attain a normative status-which would perhaps operate against the tapering off in dowry inflation that they predict.…”