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India often goes way overboard in creating laws, especially when it comes to defending the "fairer sex". But, ultimately, that means zilch to the lives of women because laws in India are rarely meant to be executed.
You can escape the scourge of dowry if you are lucky enough to grow up in one of the more liberal metros where dowry is indeed a thing of the past, especally among the middle and upper classes. In the rest of the country, there are few marriages without some sort of dowry. Dowry is the reason for female foeticide (and a fat lot of good has been done by legislation!) - if you are unlucky enough to have a girl child, you spend your life saving money for her marriage.
We were told that education was our ticket out. Bullshit! In one of the premier technological institutions in the country, I watched my fellow students from the north spend their time preparing for civil services - apparently, in the hierarchy of dowry, civil servants were one of the top earners. In the silicon valley of India's south, I realized with horror that many female software engineers saved money to pay for their dowry. I know of a few of these marriages which ended in divorce - and the guys family walked away with the loot, laws notwithstanding.
However, for those of you who would use India's dowry system to crow about the superior culture of the west - give me a break! I had to travel all the way from the third world to the US to learn that it was uncool for a girl to study and enjoy studying math and physics.
