Nisha Sharma, a 21-year-old Indian bride-to-be, cancelled her wedding in the middle of the festivities and had her fiancee arrested for strong-arming her father for an extra dowry payment. Despite India’s 40-year-old ban on dowries, Miss Sharma’s dad had already come up with televisions, computers, refrigerators, a car and other household goods to give the couple — and an identical lot for the bridegroom’s brother(!) — when, just before the wedding, the groom’s family and friends started roughing her father up for an extra wad of cash.
Miss Sharma’s actions in calling off the marriage are so rare in India that she’s become an instant celebrity. And while it sounds to Western ears that this is a quaint story about nascent feminism in a backwards country, Miss Sharma’s actions take on much more weight when you realize the dangers faced by female children and brides in this country of 1 billion people.
There is a classic Hindu saying, still used today: “…the death of an ox is a misfortune but the death of a girl is a piece of good luck.”
