BUYING HUSBANDS

Evening Star, Issue 21545, 18 October 1933, Page 3

BUYING HUSBANDS

HINDU GIRLS REVOLT Twenty Hindu Amil girls of Hyderabad have threatened to commit suicide or become Moslems—which is almost as drastic an act from the Hindu point of view—as a protest against the dowry system, under which their parents have to pay 10,000 rupees upwards to prospective bridegrooms. The Amil community is a very advanced one, being originally, as the name Amil (clerk) implies, the writers of the old ruling chiefs of Sind—-the Mirs—before the English conquest. On the advent of British rule the Amils were taken into the service of the new rulers, and seeing where their advantage lay they seized every opportunity of becoming educated. The men of this community are now leading members of Government services and professions in Sind, and as such are great “ catches ” from the matrimonial point of view. Out of this has grown up a dowry system in which the money paid by the bride’s family is _ really the purchase price of the bridegroom. Now so many Amil girls are remaining unmarried until late in life that the single girls have revolted, and have taken this spectacular manner of registering a suicide threat to attract attention to the evils of the marriage portion system.