Arya-Bhattacharya

This book studies the relevance of dowry as a customary practice in Indian marriages. It examines the historical articulation between traditional cultural texts and modern statutory law to understand how daughters are valued and how dowry as a custom defines this value. The author creates a conceptual link between modern, medieval and ancient marriage rites that formulate and embed dowry behaviour and practice within Indian society. This book also provides a critique of the cultural textual tradition of India and South Asia. It asserts for the first time that Vedic materialism is at the core of an adequate understanding of how dowry as wealth comes to occupy such a central position in the field of marriage.

An important study into the custom and tradition of South Asia, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of cultural studies, women’s studies, gender studies, religion, history, law and South Asian studies.

Anwesha Arya-Bhattacharya, an award-winning film academic, has taught cinema and creative writing widely. Anwesha has been Assistant Editor of South Asia Research (SAR) SAGE, and is a graduate of St Xavier’s College, where she edited the Bibliodelic (1993-96). A Dorab Tata (1997) scholar, her pioneering Masters research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London led to her PhD. She is the first female to be awarded the Research Student Fellowship (RSF) at SOAS. She has taught at SNDT University, Bombay and University of Connecticut (London), where her course ’Cinema as an Instrument of Social Change’ exploring human rights, feminism and film proved popular. Anwesha has book chapters in Contemporary Stardom in Hindi Film, Madhumati, Janani, and Behind Closed Doors. Co-editor of the biographical collection Bimal Roy: The Man who spoke in Pictures (2017), she is also a published poet. Living with her actor husband and their four children in East Sussex, she now runs a small literary and film society.