The Law Arrives Too Late: How The Culture Of “Adjustment” Normalises Matrimonial Abuse Before Dowry Deaths

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Samikshaa, BBA LLB (Hons), Presidency University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

ABSTRACT

Dowry deaths are often treated as sudden tragedies, but they rarely begin with a woman's death. They begin much earlier in the silences she is taught to maintain, the suffering she is expected to tolerate, and the warnings that are repeatedly dismissed as ordinary marital problems. Behind every dowry death is a woman who was told to adjust a little more, endure a little longer, and place the survival of her marriage above her own wellbeing. Marriage is often presented to women as a promise of love, dignity, companionship, and protection. Yet for many women, that promise stands in painful contrast to the realities of dowry-related harassment, emotional abuse, coercive control, and cruelty within the marital home. This contradiction raises a difficult but necessary question: who protects the bride when the protector becomes the source of harm? Through a feminist legal analysis of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and judicial interpretations of matrimonial cruelty, this article examines how women's suffering is normalised long before it is legally recognised. It argues that dowry deaths are not merely the result of unlawful demands for money or property, but the consequence of a culture that glorifies female endurance, rewards silence, and often expects women to honour marriages that have ceased to honour them. Ultimately, this article contends that preventing dowry deaths requires more than legal punishment after tragedy. It requires questioning the social belief that a woman's virtue lies in her ability to suffer and recognising that no institution, including marriage, should demand a woman's dignity, safety, or life as its price.

Keywords: Dowry Deaths, Matrimonial Cruelty, Feminist Jurisprudence, Domestic Violence, Dowry Harassment, Marriage, Patriarchy, Women's Rights.

202. THE LAW ARRIVES TOO LATE- HOW THE CULTURE OF “ADJUSTMENT” NORMALISES MATRIMONIAL ABUS

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