On Sunday 10 April 2011 03:50 PM, Bernhard Krieger wrote:
Udhay, how much of a "financial burden" do you expect your daughter will be when she comes into marriageable age in, say, 15+ years considering the current sex ratio and considering that the topic will be more prominent in the 2020s?
A friend, who lives in Bangalore, is unhappy that she is going to become a grandmother. Not because she doesn't want to be a grandmother, but because the child is in her daughter's womb and not her daughter-in-law's. Her daughter got married not too many months back. My friend had to borrow from many people to make ends meet for that wedding. Now she has to pay for all the medical costs incurred during her daughter's pregnancy as well. She wishes her daughter had at least given her a year or more before getting pregnant. When her son gets married a few years into the future, and then his wife gets pregnant, my friend's family won't incur any medical expenses: it probably won't be able to afford to.
Will a society adapt its mores quickly enough to a situation of fewer women to actually make daughters 'valuable'? I'm not sure that economic and societal values are that inelastically related. The change, I fear, will be far slower.
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