Domestic violence can be generally represented as a pattern of taking an abusive stance towards your partner in any type of intimate relationship, such as marriage, dating, family or friends. According to Seager (1997, p.26), “domestic violence is a tool of power used to sustain particular sexual, family and household structures and to keep women subordinate to them.” In the realm of Pakistan, women experience various forms of violence just because of being a woman. According to Harvey and Gow (1994), “History of violence against women is tied to the history of women being viewed as property and a gender role assigned to be subservient to men” (p.36). Women are treated as personal possessions of men, in which men have the domination over every aspect of the woman lives as well as their actions. In a Pakistani society, men have the authority to make decisions, in which women have to follow. Under the legislation of Pakistan, women come to be discussed in the same terms as material objects and …show more content…
The definition of dowry, is the amount of money or expensive things such as gold jewelry, cars, furniture, etc that are given to the groom by the bride’s family during their time of marriage. Not all grooms have the demand for dowry, this has to do with the personality of the groom himself, marked by a demanding and often unethical desire for possession of material things. If the groom demands for dowry, the bride’s family must give a dowry or the marriage will not take place. The practice of the dowry system in Pakistan, is very prominent in arranged marriages and in provincial cities as it is widely recognized as a traditional and a binding ceremony of arranged marriages. All families in Pakistan follow the dowry system, and not a single day passes without dowry deaths and torture of women. In newspaper articles, you will see stories of women who are tortured because of insufficient dowry. Many women who are unable to bear the torture, are forced to commit suicide and are burnt alive. Being burnt alive under the cover of stove deaths, after being covered with kerosene oil is defined as bride burning. (Veena,