Bride-buying

Bride-purchasing or bride-buying is the industry or trade of “purchasing a bride” to become property and at times as property that can be resold or repurchased for reselling. Bride-purchasing or bride-selling is practiced by bride-sellers and bride-buyers in parts of countries such as India and China, among others. The practice is described as a form of “marriage of convenience” but is illegal in many countries in the world.

Bride-buying is an old practice in many regions in India. Bride-purchasing is common in the states of India such as Haryana, Jharkhand, and Punjab. According to CNN-IBN, women are “bought, sold, trafficked, raped and married off without consent” across some parts of India. Bride-purchases are usually outsourced from Bihar, Assam, and West Bengal. The price of the bride (locally known as paros in Jharkhand), if bought from the sellers, may cost between 4,000 and 30,000 Indian rupees, the equivalent of US$88 to US$660. The brides' parents are normally paid an average of 500 to 1,000 Indian rupees (around US$11 to US$22). The need to buy a bride is because of the low ratio of females to males. Such low ratio in turn was caused by the preference by most Indian parents to have sons instead of daughters, and female foeticide. In 2006, according to BBC News, there were around 861 women for every 1,000 men in Haryana; and the national ratio in India as a whole was 927 women for every 1,000 men. The women are not only purchased as brides or wives but also to work as farm workers or househelp. Most women become “sex slaves” or forced laborers who are later resold to human traffickers to defray the cost.

According to the Punjabi writer, Kirpal Kazak, bride-selling began in Jharkhand after the arrival of the Rajputs. The tribe decorate the women for sale with ornaments. The practice of the sale of women as brides declined after the Green Revolution in India, the “spread of literacy”, and the improvement of the male-female ratio since 1911. The ratio, however, declined in 2001. The practice of bride-purchasing became confined to the poor sections of society such as farmers, Scheduled Castes, and tribes. In poverty-stricken families, only one son gets married due to poverty and to “avoid the division of landed property”.

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Wikipedia