Burnt wife syndrome.

Abstract

While the system of offering dowry to the groom by the parents of the bride at the time of the marriage is an age old one amongst the Hindus of India; during the recent past this evil custom has resulted in a large number of newly wed young housewives being either killed or tortured to end their own lives by their husbands and in-laws, for the unfulfilled demands or desire for dowry from the parents or guardians of the bride. Indeed in India today, torture of the young housewives by their husbands and in-laws for failure to bring insufficient dowry has become the order of the day all over the country. Some of them are burnt to death and others choose to die by fire; while still others are put to death by some means other than fire and disposed of by burning in order to hide the heinous offence. Hardly a day passes in the life of a forensic pathologist working in one of the states of Northern India, when he is not called upon to do an autopsy on the dead body of a burnt housewife who almost invariably is a married Hindu woman in the prime of her youth, between 15-30 years of age.

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