I have just read the interesting article, “Patriarchy and the mother-in-law trope in India” by Audrey Dmello (IE, June 7). She is right on most counts but elides over a crucial detail. I don’t mean to dispute her assessment, but a few additional issues need to be factored in.

One wonders why a once-oppressed new bride can oppress another just a generation later. Of course, patriarchy has a big role to play, but it is the specific type of patriarchy that matters.

There is patriarchy across the world, but that fact does not lock in with dowry deaths or even dowry. More importantly, there is patriarchy both in north and south India, but dowry deaths occur predominantly in the northern and central states, with the south and even Maharashtra figuring way down in this grisly table.

So it must be patriarchy-plus that accounts for the bulging statistic of dowry deaths in the north. Uttar Pradesh records over 2,000 such deaths annually, while the figure is barely in double digits in Kerala. In terms of cases convicted, Maharashtra, too, has a low incidence of dowry deaths with a conviction rate as low as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Now, all these states have patriarchy in full flow, so why this difference? The missing link is the way marriage relations are conducted in these regions. In the north, the bride-giver’s family is considered to be of lower social status than that of the bride-taker (recall the anuloma and pratiloma distinctions). The bride in this case is the beginning of........

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