The practice of dowry in modern India epitomizes the gulf between the ideal and the real. Stridhan or dakshina were gifts traditionally given at marriage to ensure the well-being of the bride in her new home. In its modern form, however, the demand for dowry has led to brides being tortured and even killed. The socialization of young girls into deference to parents-in-law and husband has spawned a 'culture of silence' that leaves them open to harassment. Despite preventive litigation, dowry remains a widespread 'social evil' - a marker of social status - more common, disturbingly, among the educated urban middle classes than among urban poor or rural population. While caste restrictions on the choice of marriage partners seem to have eased, socio-economic factors have gained in significance. Dowry is also making inroads into communities that did not follow the practice traditionally. Understanding the tenacity of dowry is a step towards ending an exploitative practice.

This new volume from SEA illuminates the importance of gender as a frame of reference in the study of economic life. The contributors are economic anthropologists who consider the role of gender and work in a cross-cultural context, examining issues of: historical change, the construction of globalization, household authority and entitlement, and entrepreneurship and autonomy. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers in anthropology and in the related fields of economics, sociology of work, gender studies, women's studies, and economic development. Published in cooperation with the Society for Economic Anthropology. Visit their web page.

The Trouble with Marriage is part of a new global feminist jurisprudence around marriage and violence that looks to law as strategy rather than solution. In this ethnography of lawyer-free family courts and mediations of rape and domestic violence charges in India, Srimati Basu depicts everyday life in legal sites of marital trouble, reevaluating feminist theories of law, marriage, violence, property, and the state. Basu argues that alternative dispute resolution, originally designed to empower women in a less adversarial legal environment, has created new subjectivities, but, paradoxically, has also reinforced oppressive socioeconomic norms that leave women no better off, individually or collectively.

The Trouble with Marriage is part of a new global feminist jurisprudence around marriage and violence that looks to law as strategy rather than solution. In this ethnography of lawyer-free family courts and mediations of rape and domestic violence charges in India, Srimati Basu depicts everyday life in legal sites of marital trouble, reevaluating feminist theories of law, marriage, violence, property, and the state. Basu argues that alternative dispute resolution, originally designed to empower women in a less adversarial legal environment, has created new subjectivities, but, paradoxically, has also reinforced oppressive socioeconomic norms that leave women no better off, individually or collectively.