For quite some time, I have researched to learn about the history of and the intent and implementation of the South Indian Dowry system. I am sharing my findings below. This also includes information I have collected from, the elders in my family. 

Before I start on the topic of Dowry, I would like to write a little about a few related terminologies. 

Stridhan 

Stridhan is a term in Hindu tradition that refers to property that a woman has absolute ownership of and control without restriction. The term comes from the Sanskrit words strī, meaning woman, and dhana, meaning property or wealth and could include cash, jewelry, investments, real estate etc. This dhana is given to a daughter when she gets married and is "given away" in marriage to a groom. 

Kanyaadaan 

Kanyaadaan is a ceremony where a father, with the permission of the mother, gives their daughter's hand in marriage to an eligible groom. 

Only a daughter is "given away" in marriage, and not a son, because in earlier days, there were separate gender roles. It was defined that the male or men folk had the responsibility of protecting women, mainly since women are the creators of human kind, key to human reproduction, far more important than men. Before marriage, the father held the chief responsibility of protecting the daughter/s right from her birth to the time of her marriage. At the time of her marriage this responsibility is transferred to the groom / husband. This was the structure for maintainig a continued responsibility of protecting women.

Now, let us come to the aspect of imheritance and sharing of property.

Property, in typical partriarchal families was handed down and shared between the male children. They had the financial and moral responsibility of taking care of the elders in the family. The wives or the daughters-in-law had a joint responsibility.  In order to give an equitable share to the daughters, a system of gifting a part of the property was created and maintained. This gifting was done during the daughters' marriage and was called Stridhan or in less formal terms, Dowry, 

The dowry was also a financial support system for the women since they were not earning monetarily by going out to work. Yes, in the traditional joint family, the daughter-in-law would / should be taken care even if she lost her husband. However, the dowry provided an emergency fund. It gave confidence to the woman that she is also a financial contributor.

Now all this was the pre-modern system in the families and society, 

(The exception probably was in Kerala, where some of the families or communities are / were matriarchal. I am not familiar or knowledgeable of their system or traditions.)

Hypergamy

Along with this, there was, in general a preference for hypergamy. Hypergamy is a practice of marrying someone of higher social or financial or sexual status (like sexual attractiveness or charm, complexion, stature etc.). In a male dominated society, the males usually had this advantage). The parents of daughters preferred grooms of higher status and the parents of sons preferred brides of lower status. This made it easier to have a "well-behaved" and "family-type" daughter-in-law. It was the unwritten rule that the daughter-in-law must be subservient and serve her husband, husband's family members. 

Almost all of the above definitions and traditions and social systems are based on the Joint Hindu Family system.

In the last century, definitely from circa 1950, the definitions started chaging, Women started getting formal education leading upto High School and thereafter to obtain college degrees. Some of them worked outside the home also.Till the mid 50s, even the law excluded women from the inheritance of ancestral property. It was probably only in the early 2000s that daughter's were entitled to parent's self acquired property.

 The joint family was retained for financial and business reasons in business families. Men and women started getting jobs in different cites and towns and the families started becoming nuclear. 

With all these confusing and changing situations and the long standing systemic male dominated society, it became easy to manipulate the stridhan / dowry system into a negotiation instrument. Parents of grooms started demanding cash, jewelry, cars and houses for the newly married couple. Often times, it would be beautifully adorned as a "gift" for the bride, who will be living happily and under the protection of her husband. Dowry started including cars, motor cycles, flight tickets to an overseas honeymoon etc. It was so prevalent that most parents, even the so-called educated and modern ones) would ask without any hesitation. There was no shame or guilt lt as it became an accepted tradition. The amount and items would be a direct function of the groom's parent's wealth, grooms education, job etc. 

The disease was changing from being an epidemic to an endemic condition.

TODAY ..........

I understand that when the whole system started it was intended to provide economic independence to the woman. Typically in the patriarchal family / society system  

- from the shackles of society as effected within families and as conveniently imposed by male family members. There was always the very convenient excuse "to protect" the woman.

They were denied higher education since that would protect them from the eyes of the male students who could, of course could or would exploit / abuse or take advantage in some fashion. And in times before there was the concern of ensuring the "purity" of the girl when getting married. While I will not go into the gory details, let us not be in denial and let us accept those reasons as "probably valid" for those times. Just a hundred years ago, my grandmothers were married off before they "came of age". And as a follow on they were expected to be subservient within the family, since they are being cared for or taken care of. Of course the woman had no option as they were economically dependent.

And since they were denied higher education, they were limited to the expertise of raising children and serving the family members. The economic dependence arising form the same helped create and maintain the control of women in a family and society at large.

The elders in my family even tried to convince me that the dowry system was a very logical arrangement for equitable distribution of wealth.  I was told that while the sons inherited the wealth of their father (remember, the mother, typically, had no wealth or property in her name) the daughters received their share through the "dowry".  

If this were true, I wondered happened to the dowry my mother or grandmother received. They basically handed it over to the "family", which was completely controlled by the males of the family. Secondly, if dowry was a process of equitable distribution, why was it demanded by the elders of the groom's family? Should it not have distributed willingly by the parents of the bride?

What I could never understand was why then was the groom's parents dictating or demanding the dowry. Why were the daughter's parents saving all their lives and struggling to "marry off" their daughters? Why were marriages held off after engagement due to dowry matters? Why were daughters-in-law pitched against each other within a family? Why brides were ridiculed or even punished by burning them alive due to dowry related matters? The answer is very simple - In a well oiled smoothly running family machine, you are expected only to be seen, not heard. 

I have seen the changes through a few generations and all for the better. The woman increasingly has the opportunity for and access to higher education. However, there still seems to be some hurdles like societal pressure to get married, raise a family etc, almost totally skewed towards women. I almost start getting the feeling all we need is a woman to create and have a family

Today, at least in the urban and suburban areas, almost every woman has the opportunity to education. And yes, this increase needs to continue to reach all. But what I also see is the continued effort by the man to create obstacles and hurdles.