Appropriation of wives' income: A new form of dowry in Bangladesh

This dissertation is a study of the interrelationship between law, culture, patriarchy and religion in the context of contemporary Bangladesh. The particular focus of the dissertation is the situation of married women. Since independence, growing economic hardship, increasing opportunities for female employment and education, and changing societal attitudes towards female employment and education in combination have facilitated the entry of women into the paid labour force. Bangladeshi women, both urban and rural, are no longer hesitant to join the paid labor force whenever opportunities arise. Despite the anti-dowry legislation, the dowry system has continued and shifted as a result of women's increasing paid labour force activity. When women started participating in paid employment, men adopted various strategies to accumulate wealth from their wives. Their attitude is: 'We do not want dowry. We want working women.' Women's income is considered as 'sufficient compensation for waiving dowry demands.' I argue in this dissertation that Bangladesh law should be reformed to make the appropriation of wives' income into a punishable offence.;In this dissertation, I use an Islamic approach to equality between men and women in addressing and analyzing this issue. Islam incorporates both formal and substantive equality regarding Muslim women. In my dissertation I demonstrate that Muslim women have every formal legal right to control over what they earn and posses. Informed by an understanding of substantive equality, I argue that a wife's ability to earn does not absolve her husband from his duty to maintain her. Dower and maintenance, to be provided at the husband's expense with food, clothing, accommodation and other necessaries of life, is the lawful right of the wife in Bangladesh. The practice of appropriation of wives' income or controlling wives' income by their husbands or in-laws should be considered as a form of dowry and hence a criminal offence because of the presence of Islamic dower and maintenance law in Bangladesh. To prevent appropriation of wives' income, Bangladeshi law should recognize it as a new form of dowry and criminalize it.