Bangladesh – Dowry & Physical Violence Against Women

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https://www.icddrb.org/news_detail.cfm?ID=278

 

24 March 2010

 

Bangladesh – Dowry & Physical Violence
Against Women

 

Studies on violence against women have
repeatedly shown that such violence occurs least in egalitarian relationships
and that lack of power predicts violence. High rates of wife abuse have long
been reported in Bangladesh, with some studies reporting up to 49% of ever-married
women having experienced physical violence at the hands of their husbands.
Studies have also found that women who pay dowry at marriage are more likely to
experience physical violence than those who do not pay dowry.

 

 

 

To examine the link between dowry demand and
physical wife violence, ICDDR,B recently studied the relationship between dowry
demand, dowry payment, lack of dowry demand and physical spousal violence. The
study investigated whether the issue of payment or presence of dowry demand in
marriage reflecting patriarchal attitudes of the marital family underlie the
relationship between dowry and wife abuse.

 

In marriages where no dowry was demanded,
rural women were less likely to experience physical abuse, and all women
experienced less frequent and less severe abuse compared with marriages where
dowry was both demanded and fully paid. This suggests that in general, a demand
for dowry predicts the extent, frequency and severity of abuse towards a wife,
regardless of the status of dowry payment……

 

A wife is more likely to experience physical
violence and experience it more frequently and severely in a relatively more
patriarchal community and marital home by a husband demonstrating patriarchal
attitudes. In general, dowry as an indicator of patriarchal attitude predicts
wife abuse and its frequency and severity. When a woman faces a dowry demand
for her marriage, nonpayment and partial payment of dowry increases her
vulnerability to physical abuse.  It appears that it is families who
demand dowry that may be more likely to perpetrate or tolerate violence. It is
hence the underlying patriarchal attitude, leading to dowry demands, rather
than non-or partial-payment of dowry, which provides fertile ground for
physical wife abuse.

 

As Ruchira Tabassum Naved, Head of the Gender
Human Rights and Health Program at ICDDR,B and co-author of the study
elucidates, it is these underlying patriarchal ideas that are made manifest in
dowry demands which must be addressed: Dowry related violence against women has
long been recognized in the context of South Asia.
It is commonly perceived to be linked only to dowry payment issues. Findings
from this study clearly demonstrate that although absence of full payment of
dowry may lead to violence in families, where dowry is demanded the main
underlying factor for such violence is patriarchal attitude in the families.
Thus, for prevention of dowry violence it is crucial to address patriarchal
attitude and ideology prevailing in the society.