Dowry Phenomenon. Content Warning.
I was casually browsing Google, looking up cases of violence against women, when I stumbled upon a news headline that caught me off guard: "The Dowry Culture Leads Papua Men to Commit Domestic Violence." This instantly triggered memories of social phenomena I've witnessed in my own community. It turns out this issue isn't just local—it happens in other parts of the world where dowry or bride price becomes a source of domestic abuse against women.
Take India, for example. There, a woman and her baby were burned alive simply because she failed to meet the dowry demands set by her husband's family. In Tanzania, a teenage girl suffered domestic violence at the hands of her husband. Seeking refuge with her own family, she was instead turned away—because her husband had already paid the bride price, making her, in a sense, his property.
Even in Indonesia, this issue has been subtly highlighted in entertainment. A YouTube content creator group from East Nusa Tenggara, Kaboax Channel, tackled the topic of dowry in a comedic way, yet their message was clear: dowry remains a complicated issue in modern marriages.
