'Sada suhagan' trap: The reasons why she can't walk away

“Humaari ladki toh gāi hai… muh se awaaz nahi nikalti… sehmi sehmi si rehti hai,” Twisha Sharma’s relatives joke as the newlywed waits after her “kanyadaan” for her husband. It is the kind of familiar “ladki waale” humour heard at countless Indian weddings – a performative reassurance to the groom’s family that their daughter is soft-spoken, adjusting and, above all, not troublesome. Twisha smiles and plays along. Little did they know the words would return to haunt them months later, when the silence they laughed about became permanent. Samarth Singh wanted more cash. Ritik Nagar was not happy with the car and cash he had already got, so he just wanted a better car and more cash. Ompal too wanted more cash. Ankur Chaudhary, not happy with Bullet, cash and gold, he wanted more.Twisha, Deepika, Pushpendri, Kajal, and thousands of other women allegedly died at the hands of men who wanted more from marriage than a partner. At least, that is what their families and FIRs claim. And one thing that remained common between all these cases was persistent abuse and the call for help.So why do so many women remain in marriages they fear? Why do families continue to negotiate with violent households instead of breaking ties? At what point does “adjustment” become abandonment? And why, even now, are women still expected to survive a marriage long enough for someone else to finally decide they deserve to be saved?

The anatomy of a dowry death

Dowry deaths are often reported through the final act – a woman found hanging, burned, poisoned, or dead under “suspicious circumstances.” But experts say the actual violence begins long before the death itself.“It starts with emotional abuse, financial pressure and social isolation inside the marriage,” says advocate Aditi Verma, who has handled multiple dowry and domestic violence cases. “Soon after marriage, trivialising demands begin from husbands and in-laws. The violence escalates gradually through cycles of harassment, reconciliation and renewed abuse.”According to Verma, the pattern is disturbingly consistent across cases, irrespective of class or education. Women are controlled, monitored and subjected to constant criticism. In many cases, in-laws impose strict behavioural expectations while simultaneously humiliating the woman for failing to meet them.Sometimes the abuse becomes deeply personal. In Twisha Sharma’s case, allegations made by her family and included in the investigation suggested that she was subjected to accusations regarding her character and alleged extra-marital affairs.“What is particularly disturbing,” Verma says, “is how normalised the abuse becomes within the matrimonial household. Women are repeatedly told to adjust, compromise or remain silent to protect the family’s reputation.”That normalisation often delays intervention until the violence escalates irreversibly.

Calls for help before death

Hours before her death, Deepika Nagar called her father crying, telling him she was again being assaulted over dowry demands. Her family went to her matrimonial home hoping to calm the situation. Later that night, they received another call: Deepika had allegedly fallen from the terrace.Pushpendri Devi, 19, also called home before she died.“Papa, they will kill me,” she told her father, according to her family.Before he could reach her, she was dead.And then came Kajal Chaudhary — the SWAT commando allegedly killed by her husband with a dumbbell earlier this year.“Main maar raha hoon teri behen ko,” the deceased’s brother recalled hearing over the phone as Kajal screamed in the background. Moments later, the call disconnected.Twisha Sharma, too, had allegedly been reaching out to her family about the abuse she was facing before her death.What links these women is not simply the allegation of dowry harassment, but the fact that they attempted to communicate danger before the fatal moment arrived. Parents were informed. Relatives intervened. Families tried mediation. But the abuse continued.Advocate Aditi Verma says these warning signs are common in dowry death cases.“Before the death, there are often warning signs like repeated distress calls to parents, prior complaints, threats of suicide, prior attempts to leave, unexplained injuries, or statements like ‘they won’t let me live peacefully,’” she says.The tragedy, she adds, is that these signs are often treated as routine marital conflict rather than indicators of escalating violence.

Why women stay

The question that follows almost every dowry death is brutally simplistic – why didn’t she just leave?But experts say women often remain in abusive marriages not because they fail to recognise the violence, but because leaving carries its own social punishment.“One of the most heartbreaking patterns,” Verma says, “is when women understand the abuse, know the legal remedies available to them, and yet return because they feel they have nowhere else to go.”The sentence that stays with her most is painfully familiar: “I know this is wrong, but if I leave, everyone will blame me, not him.”Dr Sapare Rohit, consultant psychiatrist at SPARSH Hospital in Bengaluru, says “hope” inside abusive marriages often survives through temporary affection, apologies and promises of change.“Many women continue believing things will improve because marriage in India is deeply connected with family honour, children and social acceptance,” he says. “They are taught that patience and sacrifice can repair relationships.”That emotional conditioning begins long before the abuse itself.Women are socialised to preserve marriages, tolerate discomfort and prioritise family stability over personal safety. Parents, often unintentionally, reinforce that expectation.“Yes, many parents unintentionally pressure daughters to remain in unsafe marriages,” Rohit says. “Advice such as ‘adjust’, ‘every marriage has problems’, or ‘think about the children’ is often given with concern rather than harmful intent. However, this can make women feel unsupported and trapped.”

That pressure cuts across class.

Twisha Sharma was educated, professionally accomplished and socially visible. Deepika Nagar came from a financially stable family. Yet both allegedly remained inside marriages their families say had already become abusive.“Even highly educated and financially independent women continue enduring abuse due to emotional conditioning, fear of stigma, concern for children, or pressure to preserve marriage at all costs,” Verma says.Divided by class, united by abuseOne of the most persistent myths around dowry violence is that it belongs only to rural or economically marginal spaces.The cases of Twisha, Deepika and others complicate that assumption.Twisha married into a legally prominent household in Bhopal. Her husband was an advocate, her mother-in-law, a retired district judge. Deepika’s marriage represented upward social mobility between financially stable families. The abuse alleged in these cases did not emerge from social invisibility, but from environments associated with status, education and respectability.“As an advocate, I have observed that abuse today is not always visible in the traditional sense,” Verma says. “In many educated and financially stable families, the violence is psychological – isolation, intimidation, manipulation, monitoring and continuous emotional degradation.”Rohit says the emotional cost of being considered a “good wife” in India remains devastatingly high.“Many women are expected to prioritise family stability over their own emotional well-being,” he says. “Society frequently praises women for tolerating suffering instead of encouraging healthy relationships.”Over time, that conditioning reshapes women’s understanding of abuse itself.“Continuous abuse often makes them feel guilty, inadequate, or responsible for the breakdown of the relationship, even when they are the victims,” Verma says.

What numbers reveal

The scale of the crisis extends far beyond individual cases.According to the NCRB’s Crime in India 2024 report, India recorded 5,737 dowry deaths last year — an average of nearly 16 women every day.Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number at 2,038, followed by Bihar with 1,078 cases. Madhya Pradesh reported 450 cases, Rajasthan 386, and West Bengal 337. Among metropolitan cities, Delhi recorded the highest number at 111.But the numbers reveal more than prevalence. They expose the persistence of dowry across changing social realities.Urbanisation did not eliminate dowry. Education did not eliminate dowry. Economic mobility did not eliminate dowry. Instead, dowry adapted itself to aspiration and status.The demands simply became more expensive.

Waiting to be saved

What statistics cannot fully capture is the emotional architecture of these marriages — the waiting, the bargaining, the hope that things will improve before they become fatal.Women wait for husbands to change. Families wait for tensions to settle. Parents wait for the “right time” to intervene more forcefully. Society waits until the violence becomes impossible to deny.And by then, it is often too late.“Many women continue staying in abusive marriages not because they do not recognise the abuse,” Verma says, “but because they fear being blamed more for leaving the marriage than the violence itself.”Perhaps that is what makes these deaths particularly haunting: most of these women did not die silently. They spoke. They warned. They asked for help. But somewhere between social respectability, family honour, fear of stigma and the endless pressure to “adjust”, their warnings were absorbed into the normal rhythm of marriage itself — until escape became impossible. Days before her death, Twisha Sharma allegedly summed up that entrapment in a message that would later sound like a warning against the institution:“I am trapped bro. Bas tu mat phansna.”