Dowry in the absence of the legal protection of women’s inheritance rights

Abstract

The practice of dowry is often thought to be the root cause of the unequal treatment of girls in India, as represented by sex-selective abortion and female infanticide. This is because the prospect of burdensome dowry payments in future makes the birth of a girl child unwelcome. For adult women without inheritance rights, however, dowry may function as their only source of protection. Using a nationwide dataset and exploiting a natural experimental setting, this study explores the relationship between dowry and women’s empowerment in India, a society where women do not have inheritance rights, and thus do not usually possess immovable assets. In such a society, dowry seems to enhance women’s status in the marital household. The relationship reverses when women have equal inheritance rights as their brothers. Empirical analysis suggests that the outright ban on dowry that ignores the context may not necessarily benefit women. It also implies that dowry may become unnecessary and disappear once women are assured of inheritance rights.