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Every year, thousands of men gather under the Pipal trees in the local market area of Madhubani district, India’s Bihar state, and wait to be chosen by prospective brides. Called Saurath Mela or Sabhagachhi, the 9-day groom market was allegedly started by Raja Hari Singh of the Karnat dynasty over seven centuries ago to make it easier for women to find the right husband from a diverse group of men. Each groom is priced based on their capability, including their educational qualifications and family background. Maithili women in Bihar choose their husbands. Accompanied by their families, they browse the available...

Before the three sisters and their children were found dead in a well, they left a message blaming the family they had married into. Kalu, Kamlesh and Mamta Meena were victims of a dispute over dowries, the often hefty sums Indian parents pay to marry off their daughters. The sisters had wed brothers from the same household and lived under the same roof, but suffered constant violence from their husbands and in-laws, according to the trio's grieving relatives. They were abused constantly, they say, including when their father failed to meet demands for more money. All three were found dead...

Details of the saga were made public when the wedding party host detailed how the gift had outraged the bride and her family in a video on social media. A newlywed woman in China has walked out on her husband and demanded a divorce – all because of a row over lingerie. The furious bride pulled the pin on their wedding celebration at the eleventh hour and declared she was filing for divorce after being insulted by her husband’s wedding gift of a bra … that was two sizes too small. The couple had already been legally married but were...

A Muslim man held a festering grudge against his young bride since the day of their wedding, prompting him to take gruesome revenge. Finally fed up, he took a large pot of boiling water from the stove and poured it over his wife’s head, literally melting her face and body. When police arrived, they were told that the horrific scene was all because of what the woman still hadn’t given to her husband since the day of their wedding. The barbarity of Islamic culture has not only survived 1,400 years of the rest of the world’s progress, but it is...

A Kenyan lawyer has offered US president Barack Obama 50 cows and other assorted livestock in exchange for his 16-year old daughter Malia's hand in marriage, a report said Tuesday. Felix Kiprono said he was willing to pay 50 cows, 70 sheep and 30 goats in order to fulfil his dream of marrying the first daughter. "I got interested in her in 2008," Kiprono said, in an interview with The Nairobian newspaper. At that time President Obama was running for office for the first time and Malia was a 10-year-old. "As a matter of fact, I haven't dated anyone since...

A married young Saudi man attending his sister’s wedding accepted a bet by friends and jokingly asked a man at the party to let him marry his daughter. To his shock, the man quickly agreed and called a Maazoun (marriage performer) to finalize the contract as friends stared in disbelief. “The young man then said he was joking and that he does not have money to pay dowry…but the man told him he would let him marry his daughter even for SRone,” the Arabic language daily Jazan News said in a report from the southern Jazan province. “The young man...

The Dubai Court of Appeal acquitted a Yemeni teacher accused of forging her marriage certificate and increasing her dowry from Riyal 100,000 to Riyal 500,000. Last December, the lower court had convicted her and sentenced her to three months in jail. According to the records, FM, 38, is seeking divorce from her husband MH and submitted the forged contract to the Sharia Court judge asking her husband to pay her Riyal 500,000 dowry. The 39-year-old husband, a jobless Yemeni testified that he had married the accused in Yemen in 1999 and promised to pay Riyal 100,000 as dowry. “I was...

Trending on the social media site, the hashtag takes a cheeky turn on wedding bluesMarital bliss is a tough cookie to crack for several Saudi men who have taken to Twitter to boycott women in general unless bridal dowry isn’t revised to make it easier on their wallets. The Arabic hashtag, which was soon trending on the micro blogging site yesterday, roughly translates to ‘Campaign to boycott girls until bride price is reduced’. The war of the roses took a cheeky turn within minutes, with battle lines being drawn and both sexes swearing of marriage until a lasting solution was...

I am sure that most of you guys would have heard about the honorable gentleman MP Duwaisan and his suggestion that the government should give a Kuwaiti man KD8,000 (US$27,729.67) grant if he marries a Kuwaiti woman. Currently, the government pays KD 4,000 (US$13,864.89) per marriage. Duwaisan wants to double that amount since he claims that living expenses have doubled and lifestyles have also changed. So far, so good. The gentleman went to the extent of proposing that if the man acquires a second wife, he should be given another KD8,000. The condition is that the bride should be Kuwaiti....

(CNN) -- A California man sold his 14-year-old daughter to an 18-year-old man for cash, beer and meat -- then called police when the prospective bridegroom didn't live up to his end of the deal, authorities said Tuesday. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez faces felony charges, according to police in Greenfield, California. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, of Greenfield, California, was arrested Monday and booked into the Monterey County Jail, Greenfield police said in a statement. He faces felony charges of receiving money for causing a person to cohabitate, police said. Martinez had arranged through a third party to have his...

XIN'AN VILLAGE, HANZHONG, China -- With no eligible women in his village, Zhou Pin, 27 years old, thought he was lucky to find a pretty bride whom he met and married within a week, following the custom in rural China. Ten days later, Cai Niucuo vanished, leaving behind her clothes and identity papers. She did not, however, leave behind her bride price: 38,000 yuan, or about $5,500, which Mr. Zhou and his family had scrimped and borrowed to put together. When Mr. Zhou reported his missing spouse to authorities, he found his situation wasn't unique. In the first two months...

A Dubai resident, Dimple Carvalho (36), has moved the Bombay high Court after finding her name in a dowry harassment case lodged by a south Mumbai resident. Kavita Shah (44) has claimed that Dimple had an "illicit'' relationship with her husband Paresh Shah. Dimple has denied the allegation or that she had any role to play in the alleged incidents of harassment. A division bench of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice A R Joshi on Wednesday reserved its judgment in the case. The court will also decide on another application filed by Paresh's parents-Lal Shah and Dhanvanti Shah -who have...

SALINAS, Calif. - A California man accused of selling his 14-year-old daughter into marriage for $16,000, beer and meat has pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment. Marcelino de Jesus Martinez had pleaded not guilty in February to procuring a child for lewd acts, aiding and abetting statutory rape and child endangerment. If convicted of those charges he faced 10 years in prison.

A female journalist who reported on women's rights and spoke out against the dowry system in southern Nepal was killed by a group of attackers, an official said Monday.

See for example this thread first. The news is surprising to me These men rent their wives for a fee! If you're destitute Make your beau prostitute? ...'cause at home you can have her for FREE!

POLICE in eastern India are hunting a groom who quit his marriage ceremony midway when his bride's parents said they could not meet his dowry demand of a motorcycle, an official said Sunday. Rajiv Shaw, 31, walked out of the ceremony at Chitpur on the outskirts of the West Bengal state capital of Calcutta yesterday after springing the surprise demand, police official Sheikh Abdul Rajjack said. The bride's mother, Urmila Devi, said her daughter's marriage with Shaw, an autorickshaw driver, was fixed last November. She had handed over 65,000 rupees ($1967) in cash besides furniture, kitchen utensils and gold ornaments...

EWTN GALLERY: SEPTEMBER 27 ~ OCTOBER 1 THEME: CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND EWTN GALLERY THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND: THE DOWRY OF MARY: PT. 1 (30:00) NEW Monday September 27, 2004 4:30 AM Monday September 27, 2004 6:30 PM EWTN GALLERY THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND: THE DOWRY OF MARY: PT. 2 (30:00) NEW Tuesday September 28, 2004 4:30 AM Tuesday September 28, 2004 6:30 PM EWTN GALLERY THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND: THE DOWRY OF MARY: PT. 3 (30:00) NEW Wednesday September 29, 2004 4:30 AM Wednesday September 29, 2004...

India's young brides rebel against the dowry demand By Phil Reeves in Delhi 10 October 2003 A new and unlikely front has been opened in the battle by young Indian women against illegal dowry demands, this time within a bastion of religious and cultural conservatism, Varanasi on the Ganges. The ancient holy city, where devout Hindus traditionally go to die, has become the venue of a high-profile and decidedly contemporary confrontation between a media-savvy young woman and a man whose family she accuses of illegally demanding money for her hand. In May, Nisha Sharma, a 21-year-old computer software engineer, became...

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Men in a remote village in the desert of western India are struggling to find wives as women flee the community because of an acute water shortage, a newspaper report said Thursday. Would-be brides are reluctant to marry into families in the village of Saderi, 300 miles southwest of New Delhi, because they would have to walk long distances every day to fetch water, Hindustan Times said. More than 10 wives that tired of the hardship have walked out on their husbands, as taps and wells in the village run dry in the blazing summer...