Not just that, the Dowry is like a sale deed for a bride. If you can imagine a medieval marriage, the father of the bride or the king tends to give a piece of property to the groom as part of the marriage agreement, generally land or horses. This is that but money or material goods, like a car or a house. Apart from that it is expected according to traditional circumstances that the brides family hosts the wedding and incurs all related costs. After the marriage the bride belongs to the grooms family and cannot provide for her own family in any way unless the groom is charitable, again under traditional circumstances. Its just all crap, leading to the jeet conception of women as financial burdens as they incur a ton of expenses and tentatively provide no benefit whatsoever, one of the reasons why the population is so high cause people who had girls tended to try to have more children till they had a son.