Love burns: An essay about bride burning in India

Each year in countries like India, thousands of young women are burned to death or afflicted with fatal burns. They are victims of dowry deaths. The husband and/or in-laws have determined that the dowry, a gift given from the daughter's parents to the husband, was inadequate and therefore attempt to murder the new bride to make the husband available to remarry or to punish the bride and her family. Unfortunately, this is a domestic issue that is often ignored or minimized, and the prosecution is often inadequate. This review article illustrates various scenarios of dowry deaths, investigates different predispositions, summarizes the current legislation, and proposes solutions to this problem. One hopes that the exposure of this problem may curtail its rampant, yet well-hidden, prevalence.