With special reference to Uttar Pradesh, India.

In India, one woman is murdered every hour by her husband's family for a dowry. The Burning Bride follows the story of Uma, a newlywed woman. She starts her new life with many dreams. However, her dreams turn into nightmares when her parents are unable to fulfil the dowry demands made by Madhu, her mother-in-law. The heaven she had imagined transforms into a hell, and the worst part is; there appears to be no escape. Violence against women is high in India but the irony is that Indian people worship women in the forms of many goddesses. The most commonly worshipped goddess is Durga who has nine forms. Therefore The Burning Bride is told through nine women's perspectives. The multiple perspectives highlights social, psychological and cultural factors which allow the dowry system to claim so many lives every year. At least 10% of the profits made from the sales of The Burning Bride will support the Asian Circle to fund Oxfam projects to end domestic violence in India.

Oldenburg argues that dowry murder is not about dowry per se nor is it rooted in an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, dowry murder can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era.

Before a crowd of several thousand people, mostly men, a young woman dressed in her bridal finery was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. The apparent revival of an ancient tradition opened old wounds in Indian society and focused world attention on the status and treatment of women in modern India.".

It's 1971 in Delhi, India, and Maya Kahtri is about to enter into the time-honored tradition of arranged marriage-a tradition that holds strong against modern ways. But no sooner than Maya's father provides her agreed upon dowry to her fiancé's family does Maya learn that she has just been traded into a deal deeply imbedded into Indian culture-a deal in which Maya is chattel. Maya embarks on a quest to find the root of the cruel customs that have seeped into the families, relationships, and minds of India's people. Going against her prescribed destiny, Maya faces irate backlash as she is hunted by her enemies. But when Indira Gandhi enacts new emergency measures in a forceful attempt to bring a chaotic country further into modernization, Maya finds an ally in her fight. Can Maya change the course of Indian history despite the traditions that are fused so deeply into its identity? Or will she be drawn into India's ancient spells?

In these insightful 1973 papers two leading authorities make a wide-ranging review of ideas and materials on bridewealth and dowry.