Opinion of college boys and girls about dowry, pre-martial counselling and dating

Pages: 627-629
Zarine Immanuel (Mother Teresas Womens University, Tamilnadu)
Kalyani Kenneth (Rajiv Gandhi National Institute for Youth Development, Tamilnadu)

This study is aiming to bring about changes in the attitude of today’s adolescents and to get their opinion on sensitive topics like dating and pre-marital counselling which is a taboo and unheard of in certain places in India. The survey was conducted among 200 college boys and girls from the college in Tuticorin District, Tamil Nadu. Seventy-five and seventy- three percentage of boys and girls respectively opined against taking dowry for various reasons while the remaining were in favour of it. About eighty nine percent of boys and seventy percent of girls expressed the need of having premarital counselling for making their prospective marriage successful. Around seventy-five percent of boys and fifty- five percent of girls were ready to date their prospective spouses before marriage to get to know them well. It can be seen in the study that the number of adolescent boys who are against taking dowry is seventy-five percent and for the adolescent girls it is seventy three percent. However the fact that the dowry system is still widely practical contradicts these views. There was a positive feedback for the need of pre-marital counselling.