Why Dowry Requires a Statutory Warning

Despite decades of legal reform and social awareness campaigns, dowry system remains a deeply rooted and devastating practice in India. This blog asks a vital question: What if the fight against dowry didn't stop at legislation or courtroom verdicts—but extended into our everyday screens, stories, and social feeds? In a media-saturated world, where brides gleaming with gold flood our timelines and movie scenes, visual culture plays a quiet but powerful role in normalising practices that the law seeks to abolish. This blog explores how statutory warnings—already used to curb smoking or depict violence responsibly—can be reimagined to challenge the visual celebration of dowry in Kerala’s popular culture. It’s a call to rethink aesthetics, accountability, and the stories we choose to tell.

Statutory Warning: Giving or Taking or Abetting the giving or taking of dowry is a punishable offence.

We’re all familiar with those flashing messages at the bottom of movie screens:

Smoking is injurious to health.

Violence against women is a punishable offence.

But here’s one you don’t often see—though you should:

Giving or taking dowry is a punishable offence under the law.

Despite being illegal since 1961, the dowry system continues to flourish in India, including in a state like Kerala—often lauded for its high literacy rate and impressive human development indicators. The tragedy is not abstract. It takes the form of suicides, domestic violence, and social exclusion—especially of women who are seen as a “burden” for not bringing in enough gold, cash, or gifts.

The law is in place. Policies exist. But laws alone cannot dismantle ideas that are deeply entrenched in culture. What’s needed is a sustained, critical engagement with the stories we tell ourselves—especially through popular culture, which has become the everyday text of our lives.

Open a magazine, scroll through Instagram, or catch a Malayalam movie on OTT—what do you see? Brides, radiant in gold, draped in designer sarees, walking into weddings that look like royal coronations. These aren't just images. They’re cultural signals, reinforcing the idea that a bride must be adorned in wealth—read: dowry.

Visual media—films, ads, reels, wedding photography—are not passive storytellers. They actively shape what society sees as “normal.” And when bridal imagery is saturated with expensive jewellery, it normalises gold as a standard of worth, not just adornment. The dowry isn’t named—but it is there, gleaming in every frame.

Why is this a problem? Because dowry is not a ritual; it’s a form of violence.

Like structural poverty or forced displacement, dowry practices inflict harm—psychological, financial, emotional—on women and their families. And yet, this form of violence remains largely unspoken in our everyday media. The cinematic bride weighed down by gold is rarely seen as a victim of patriarchal expectations. Instead, she’s sold as the epitome of elegance, love, and familial pride.

Here, we need to broaden our definition of violence. Just as Peace Studies teaches us that peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice, gender sensitivity demands that we see dowry as a form of injustice—not tradition.

So what can be done?

Let’s take a cue from statutory warnings already used in films. Scenes of alcohol consumption, smoking, or even verbal abuse often come with legal disclaimers. Why not extend the same practice to scenes that depict dowry rituals or glamorised bridal imagery that reinforces harmful norms?

A simple message—shown repeatedly—can slowly shift perceptions:

“Giving or taking dowry is a punishable offence. Say no to dowry.”

This isn’t about censoring creativity. It’s about using the power of visual storytelling responsibly. Imagine if every movie, ad, or serial that casually included dowry practices also challenged them with a legal reminder. It wouldn’t change things overnight—but it would begin to interrupt the passive consumption of inequality.

Let’s not wait for the next awareness week or oath-taking ceremony. Let’s bring the conversation into the stories we binge-watch, the weddings we glamorise, and the ads we celebrate. Let’s make anti-dowry messages part of our everyday visual culture—not just courtroom rhetoric.

Because when popular culture reinforces harmful norms, it must also be held accountable to challenge them.

Let’s start here:

Statutory Warning: Giving or Taking or Abetting the giving or taking of dowry is a punishable offence.

And let’s not stop saying it—until it stops being true.