Marriage, in this land, can be a license to kill. Indian patriarchy is not just oppressive, it is homicidal. Every 90 minutes, a bride is strangled, burned, or bludgeoned to death by the very man society commands her to worship as pati-parmeshwar. These are everyday eruptions of a system where fragile men weaponise pseudo-machismo to mask their insignificance. Patriarchy is not some neat hierarchy of roles; it is a theatre of cruelty, a grotesque ritual in which women’s bodies are made sacrificial altars for male anxiety. In Greater Noida, Nikki Bhati despite bringing a lavish dowry, was set ablaze by her husband Vipin and in-laws with her six-year-old son watching—a nightmare that will haunt him for life. Tanu Rani in Hapur, married to Rahul Kumar, was killed after enduring relentless dowry demands. Reshma Begum in Cachar, mother of two, beaten to death by her husband over dowry. The men in question are not gangsters or psychopaths. They are clerks, farmers, shopkeepers. None of them wore the mask of a cinematic villain. They looked like your neighbour. They spoke like your cousin. They smiled at weddings, folded their hands at temples. This is Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil in Indian clothing: not devils, but mediocrities, killing as though they were stomping on an ant. Evil, in India, is scarily mundane; it sits at the dinner table, counts the gold bangles, and calculates how much more can be squeezed.
Dowry was outlawed in 1961, yet 60 years later, according to 2022 figures, India recorded 6,450 dowry deaths, and each year there are over 7,000 such deaths on average. Here is the real scandal: the violence thrives not because of a few monsters but because of millions of bystanders. Police officers who dilute FIRs. Judges who let cases drag until witnesses forget. Mothers-in-law who tighten the noose around their daughters-in-law because patriarchy trained them to. Neighbours who “heard something” but shrugged. This is the banality of our complicity. In agrarian societies like plow-intensive northwest India, male physical strength was historically prized, skewing social structures against women. Hence the Indian male has long lived in a paradox. Patriarchy gives him authority but strips him of individuality. He is seen not as a person but as breadwinner, husband, son. His worth is measured not by who he is but by what he extracts: salary, status, dowry. Women become undervalued assets and masculinity is defined by dominance and entitlement.
This entitlement is socially confusing. Historian Veena Talwar Oldenburg notes pre-colonial dowry intended for social heritage and protection of women evolved drastically under colonial and post-colonial pressures. In ancient Vedic texts, bridewealth paid to bride’s family was dominant: not dowry. Women retained inheritance rights. Even ancient scriptures hint both at the consequences of unchecked male ego and patriarchal contradiction: Manusmriti condemns asura-type marriage, where bridewealth is demanded, as impious. It hints that greed and power have spiritual cost. It also says elsewhere that women are “subject to their fathers in childhood, their husbands in youth, their sons in old age.” As androcentric norms centralised over centuries of cultural intrusions, women’s autonomy vanished. Philosophically, power without empathy breeds sadism. American political scientist Ronald Inglehart’s modernisation theory suggests economic growth would reduce intolerance, but the Indian experience shows that aspiration can amplify patriarchy unless cultural reformation keeps pace. For example, Bollywood is a dutiful servant of male morality. Generations grew up on movies where the adarsh bahu bows her head, cooks for in-laws, tolerates humiliation. Think Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, Vivah, Hum Saath - Saath Hain. Women are props; smiling, serving, sacrificing all the while looking trendy.
And trendy women are emasculating. The modern woman terrifies the man-centric order. She is articulate, mobile, financially independent. Instead of celebrating her, toxic masculinity trains the husband to resent her. So, the equation flips: the very skills that make her valuable to the job market make her intolerable at home. She becomes both ATM and enemy. And yet, the more educated a woman is, the more dangerous her position in the family becomes. Because education magnifies male insecurity. Machismo whispers to him, “You are entitled to control, not compete.” So he asserts his “manhood” not by rising but by cutting her down, sometimes literally with kerosene and a match. This is not economics. It is psychosexual sadism dressed as tradition. The woman’s body, instead of being respected as a sacred trust, becomes the ultimate victim of evil. Philosophy warns that power without checks breeds sadism. Nietzsche called it res-sentiment: the weak striking out at the weaker to mask their impotence. This is India’s inheritance: ordinary men, armed with perverse entitlement, turning marriage into a marketplace, and brides into bodies for burning.