Dowry Murder

I was really struck by the Narayan article, which essentially explains how domestic violence in the United States and dowry-related burnings in India are not easily reconciled. This if for several reasons, but the one that suprised me the most was that women (or more broadly society in general) assign a certain cultural significance to the matter in which the act was carried out. Dowry murder is for some reason more easily explained as "death by culture", as women in the United States do not understand it as fatal domestic violence. Although the author points out that these types of murder are generally preceded by events that Americans would more typically define as domestic violence, the fact that they die by burning is somehow viewed as exotic. Fire, however, is not chosen as a culturally specific weapon but for its abillity to conceal forensics. Claiming the use of fire is culturally specific would be the equivalent of stating that fatal shootings in domestic violence are a uniquely American phenomenon, and as such can be explained away by "culture". I appreciated the article, because I had never thought of the ways in which violence towards women is justified (for lack of a better word) by culture when it more closely aligned with patriarchy. Which is almost universal. Therefore, we should be less focused on the ways in which women are abused and killed than on the social institutions that more or less allow it to occur under the cover of culture.