`Helps marry off ugly looking girls’: Shock, anger after nursing textbook lists merits of dowry system

hock and anger have swept across the country after a nursing textbook listed the “merits and advantages” of the dowry system.

The page, which many social media users said is from Textbook of Sociology for Nurses by T K Indrani, has a section under the subhead, “Merits of Dowry”. The book is reading material for nursing students and its cover says it is written as per the Indian Nursing Council syllabus.

Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi called upon Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to remove such books from circulation and underlined that their presence in our curriculum is a “shame”.

“I request Shri @dpradhanbjp Ji to remove such books from circulation. That a textbook elaborating the merits of dowry can actually exist in our curriculum is a shame for the nation and its constitution,” she said.

The section from the book states that “dowry helps establish new household” with furniture, appliances such as refrigerators, and vehicles.

It then lists girls getting a share of parental property in dowry as another “merit” of the regressive practice, which has been banned in the country for a long but continues nonetheless. Reports of women being harassed, physically assaulted, killed, and driven to suicide over dowry demands continue to come in even today. 

The section says that “an indirect advantage” of the dowry system is that parents have now started educating their girls so that they have to give less dowry.

The chapter also says the dowry system can help marry off “ugly looking girls”.