Families scrimped and saved for years to build a dowry so that their daughter might marry well.
The researchers say many cases could be linked to demands over a dowry leading to women being set on fire.
When she was a young woman her father gave her a choice - he could afford a dowry or pay for her degree, but not both.
Coming back here only to be married off by their fathers to collect a dowry, settle a debt, or repent for a crime just doesn't cut it.
The rebel leader himself has acquired a new wife, his fourth, whom he allegedly kidnapped last month and then paid a dowry for, using part of his ransom income.
In 1658, the Sultan of Brunei gave Sabah to the Sultan of Sulu - either as a dowry or because troops from Sulu had helped him quell a rebellion.
In India, paying and accepting a dowry - a centuries-old tradition where the bride's parents present gifts of cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom's family - has been illegal since 1961.
"It leaves a healthy dowry for the BFI to inherit, " agreed Gareth Unwin, who gave "a massive thank you to the UK Film Council" as he accepted the best picture Oscar with his colleagues.
Titian, meanwhile, also gave Lavinia a big enough dowry to marry a gentleman farmer and his other portraits of her show her in more lavish dress.
In it, the man asks her for her hand but her family demands a huge dowry.
The Shetland Islands were given from Norway to Scotland in the 15th Century as part of a royal dowry.
In their custom, men must pay a very specific dowry in order to wed and one told me that his girlfriend has waited 8 years for him to earn enough to marry her.
Business thrived as families came in to shop to purchase the heavy jewelry offered as bridal dowry, a practice common in many parts of India.
FORBES: Arabia-Asia: Jeweler Joy Alukkas Brings Gulf-Style Marketing Home To India
Amina is forced to marry at 12, to bear a child though still a child herself -- while her own brother is given her dowry money to buy a used car.
"The only thing that could really end this problem is a firm end to the system of dowry, " Mr Singh said from his cell at the local police station.
The legal amendment, making it possible for an accuser to nullify a case under prosecution, will also apply to dowry harassment cases.
Outdated traditions include a brother forbidding his sister to marry and then "shaming" her by withholding her dowry.
In the old days, she says, a man could abandon his wife and hold on to the property, even if part of it was her dowry.
应用推荐