Marriage website's Facebook game bashes India's dowry practice

Shaadi.com, a matrimonial-dating website in India, has created a Facebook game that lashes out at the illegal practice of dowry, which is still widely prevalent in India.

Dowry involves the groom's family taking all sorts of stuff from the bride's family despite a 1969 ban. The stuff includes money, property and material items including cars, jewellry,refrigerators and electrical appliances.

Less dowry can even lead to wife-burning by the in-laws after the marriage. India had 8400 dowry-related deaths in 2010,, according to the India's National Crime Records Bureau.

Angry brides, which takes its cue from the popular Angry birds game, involves players hitting three greedy grooms with weapons like a broom, a stiletto heel, a tomato and utensils. The grooms, a doctor, an engineer and a pilot, have different degrees of greed. Each hit decreases the price of the groom and adds that money to the player's Anti-Dowry Fund.

"A woman will give you Strength, Care and all the love you need...not Dowry," its creators say. "The Angry brides game is our way of throwing spotlight on the nuisance of dowry."

The dowry-burden makes the girl unwelcome persona for her own parents. There are scores of cases of families killing the baby-girl after she is born. The degree of female infanticide in India is alarming. According to the 2011 government consensus, India has only 914 girls for every 1000 boys compared to 927 in 2001--indicating that the situation was worsening despite growing awareness campaigns.

The Facebook page of the game features a woman with eight arms. She looks similar to Durga, the Hindu goddess of power. The game has received 281, 295 likes but some folks think that the game trivializes the issue and it does not have any practical impact.

Photo-- Shaadi.com

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com