Marriage and Dowry Essay Example for Free

Marriage and Dowry Essay Woman a daughter, a sister, a wife and a grandmother, throughout her life she dreams of having a wonderful life, a life to see to it that her marks in the school will make her parents happy, a life to see to it that her husband stays healthy, a life to see to it that her children study for their exams and a life to die seeing others happy. She cares for others, more than herself, then why we see her so much vulnerable in every moment of her life. So many issues to talk about women, rape being the most popular issue on women in the present time, almost all the women, in India, are vulnerable to this offence. But just like rape, the dowry system has affected the women psychologically, physically and emotionally. The dowry system kills her like a slow poison. The custom of dowry, in India, has spread through the hierarchy of social stratification. Several feminists suggest that the practice was initially adopted by the upper castes, then over a period of time it has been passed down into lower castes, and eventually reaches the untouchables, the outcasts. As the sociological studies suggests, often lower groups intend to copy there dominant group in there society. India ranks 136, in Human Development Index, among 187 counties around the world. This show, the people in India are in very bad condition and more than half of the population lives in poverty. The reason for poverty in India, if we look historically, it is because of the caste system, which restricted half of the population, in India, to develop, as even in present time 66% of Dalits are poor, and if we look in present time, education has deprived the poor from getting a better standards of living. It is these poorer sections as well as the middle class of our country who, not being educated and having good standard of living are still governed by old customs and traditions and continue to practise the dowry system, were in the name of gifting the groom the bride’s family is put into debt. But even in many rich families too, this system is being followed, even though they are well educated. The sums of cash and goods involved, as dowry, are often so large that the payment can lead to vicious cycle of debt in the bridal family. This has a very bad effect on the lives of unmarried women who are considered as economic liabilities by their parents, this leads to preference of boy over girl, leading to female infanticide and among the married women; they are physically and mentally harmed by their husbands and his family members, if promised dowry are not forthcoming. Modernization in India has became a barrier to many customs to be continued, like the caste system, the child marriage etc. but modernization has also lead to increase in practise of certain customs which were restricted to certain communities, as mentioned above. When we see caste, dowry and modernization, they are all inter linked with each other. With modernization, individual is not restricted to do his caste occupation and has chances to have good standard of living. Since new income and earning opportunities, brought about by modernization, are predominantly filled by men, there price tag of dowry increased. After analysing the historical developments of dowry system among the people in India, who are governed under Hindu law, now let us look at the Muslims, who are the 2nd largest population in India. Despite the fact that Islam’s beauty lies in simplicity and it recommends simple marriage, some transgressions such as dowry have crept into Muslim society in a wide range. When we look through Quran, we come across â€Å"Mahr†. According to â€Å"mahr† it is a mandatory payment, in the form of money or possessions paid by the groom, or by grooms father, to the bride at the time of marriage that legally becomes bride’s property. But as time has passed by, Muslims have changed their character and are following their Hindu counterparts in demanding and offering dowry both, in heavy cash and kind. The competition among the rich and well-to-do section of the Muslim community to reserve a good match for their daughters for whatever the demand is, has increased. Education has hardly has any influence on the minds of the people in respect of dowry. On the contrary, a highly educated man expects a higher amount of dowry, just as it happens among the Hindus. The violence committed on women, for dowry, has increased in recent times. If we observe properly, as to why this dowry violence takes place, we can see a broader picture. The reason for dowry is mainly because the women are seen as less productive than man, concept of dowry itself shows that one’s gender determines one’s worth. The roots of this deficiency can be seen were even a bride, who may be well educated and earning than her husband, will still have to pay the dowry price, just like the other bride who is not educated and not earning. And in some instances too, were even if demands for dowry were to be satisfied fully, young women would continue to face torture and harassment in their in-laws homes because of women’s custom-sanctioned-inferiority. Dowry deaths are example of patriarchal authority. In some cases, the patriarchal authority expresses itself by murdering the young women by burning with kerosene (most frequent in urban areas) or drowning (common in rural areas). Other methods employed to murder include poisoning and physical battery. These facts and historical development shows that it is because of the disrespect and uncultured behaviour that we show towards women, has lead to female infanticide, uneducated girls, sexual harassment, dowry system, heavy debt in bride’s family and domestic violence. Let us all respect women, and treat them has equals, because only this solution, will lead to abolishment of many social evils against women.

Cryptography Essay -- Data Encryption

Cryptography is such a broad part of our lives we do not even notice the smallest applications, shopping on eBay or watching satellite television. I bet you even used cryptology when you were in school and did not even know it. Ever write a message in numbers instead of letters? Each letter of the alphabet correlated to its number position in the alphabet. The number sequence 3,16,25,12,20,15,12,15,7,25 equals cryptology. This is a form of cryptology in its most basic form. Webster's dictionary defines Cryptography as : n. 1. The act or art of writing in code or secret characters; also, secret characters, codes or ciphers, or messages written in a secret code. 2. The science which studies methods for encoding messages so that they can be read only by a person who knows the secret information required for decoding, called the key; it includes cryptanalysis, the science of decoding encrypted messages without possessing the proper key, and has several other branches; see for example steganography. [1] Cryptographies main purpose is to hide messages and information. One of the earliest forms of cryptography was the rearranging of letters in messages. This was known as transportation ciphers. A cipher is a system in which plain text, usually the letters, are transposed or substituted according to a predetermined code. Another early form of cryptography was the substitution of letters. One cipher was named after Julius Caesar who was said to have used a 3 letter shift. This involved substituting a letter with another letter in the alphabet three positions away. Caesar used this method to communicate with his generals in wartimes. [2] Cryptography tries to protect the confidential nature in the communications of military leaders ... ...to keep secret. References 1. http://www.webster-dictionary.net/d.aspx?w=Cryptography 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography 3. Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, James D G Dunn, John W Rogerson, eds., Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-8028-3711-5 4. Kama Sutra, Sir Richard F. Burton, translator, Part I, Chapter III, 44th and 45th arts. 5. David Kahn, The Codebreakers, 1967, ISBN 0-684-83130-9. 6. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/nsa/stories/crypto.history/ 7. Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, "New Directions in Cryptography", IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. IT-22, Nov. 1976, pp: 644-654. 8. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SSL.html 9. http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/TCP%2FIP+port 10. http://news.com.com/FAQ+Sonys+rootkit+CDs/2100-1029_3-5946760.html?tag=nl 11. http://www.rsasecurity.com/node.asp?id=1158

Cultural Stereotype Essay

Human beings are unique and different in many ways. However, people from other countries may also have certain similarities in character and perception. Cultural differences give people an idea on how to describe or identify a person who belongs to a certain group. Most of the time, people give a preconceived or oversimplified generalization about another group of people. The world is full of different groups of people that make up the whole of the society. These groups, however, have their own classifications based on how people perceive them. Stereotyping can sometimes be positive, but it may also bear a false assumption toward a certain group or person. Stereotyping is definitely inevitable because this is one way of giving a certain group an identity for them to be easily recognized by the people who share the same perception towards them. In most cases, stereotyping affects the way the society views a certain group of people, and worst, the image and perception that the society has towards them may be considered as reality rather than just a representation of that group. For example, the society looks at women as oppressed and vulnerable while the teenagers are perceived as aggressive and carefree individuals. The politicians are viewed as cheaters and liars while the loner people are stereotyped as weird or geek. These kinds of perception are stored in the minds of other people until they get to know one person from the group and prove that not all people with the same color, interests, gender, and designation have the same characteristics. Most often, however, stereotypes are wrong and negative which instill a permanent image or representation of an individual who belong to that cluster. The world might have been changing but the stereotyping remains as old as the culture that each country or each group has reserved for the past centuries. It is a manifestation that stereotyping can never be avoided or eradicated for it is part of the lives of the mainstream. Oftentimes, stereotyping offends the person or the group because of exaggeration in naming and injustice in giving information without proper evidences. Unfortunately, a certain group that had been rendered a stereotyped judgment tends to create an image which would remain inculcated in the minds of the people in the society. The impression that a group leaves to the people around them would be the same impression that would be gained by the other group which looks, acts, talks, and even shares the same beliefs with them. It has been said that mass media is one of the strongest factors in creating a stereotype judgment toward a person or a group. Apparently, people pattern their views based on how media portrays a specific group on media sources. The media does not teach the society on how they should perceive a group but their portrayal of that group on television shows, magazines, newspapers, and radio would give people an idea on the characteristics of the individuals that certain group has. Sadly, the media most of the time, tends to overlook the consequences of negative depiction of a certain group. On the other hand, stereotyping makes a certain group distinct from others. Because of the image that the society created pertaining to them, a group would be easily recognized and would gain a unique identity. Stereotyping may be favorable to those that have been having a good image representation because the society may not easily notice their negative sides. However, it would be unfair for those who already have a negative judgment from the society because people may perceive them only based on what they have learned and heard about that specific group. Every individual believes and practices different cultures and these may affect the way people view one another. However, making themselves familiar to the culture and beliefs of others may somehow lessen the negative impact of stereotyping. As stated in this article, not all stereotypes are bad and damaging for a group of individuals who share the same perspectives. Rather, it is the ignorance and the refusal of another group to know more about the culture of the other that makes it offensive. People should evaluate first the image that they have conceived from other people or from the media in order to avoid the negative perceptions caused by stereotyping.

Structure Dependency and Grammar

The linguistic principle that grammatical processes function primarily on structures in sentences, not on single words or sequences of words is termed structure-dependency. Many linguists view structure-dependency as a principle of universal grammar. The Structure Of Language The principle of structure-dependency compels all languages to move parts of the sentence around in accordance with its structure rather than just the sheer order of words. . . .Structure-dependency could not be acquired by children from hearing sentences of the language; rather, it imposes itself on whatever language they encounter, just as in a sense the pitch range of the human ear restricts the sounds we can hear. Children do not have to learn these principles but apply them to any language they hear. (Michael Byram, Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. Routledge, 2000)All speakers of English know structure-dependency without having given it a moments thought; they automatically reject *Is Sam is the the cat that black? even if they have never encountered its like before. How do they have this instant response? They would accept many sentences that they have never previously encountered, so it is not just that they have never heard it before. Nor is structure -dependency transparent from the normal language they have encountered--only by concocting sentences that deliberately breach it can linguists show its very existence. Structure-dependency is, then, a principle of language knowledge built-in to the human mind. It becomes part of any language that is learned, not just of English. Principles and parameters theory claims that an important component of the speakers knowledge of any language such as English is made up of a handful of general language principles such as structure-dependency. (Vivian Cook, Universal Grammar and the Learning and Teaching of Second Languages. Perspectives On Pedagogical Grammar, ed. by Terence Odlin. Cambridge University Press, 1994) Interrogative Structures ​One example of a universal principle is structure-dependency. When a child learns interrogative sentences, it learns to place the finite verb in sentence initial position: (9a.) The doll is pretty(9b.) Is the doll pretty?(10a.) The doll is gone(10b.) Is the doll gone? If children lacked insight into structure-dependency, it should follow that they make errors such as (11b), since they would not know that the doll is pretty is the sentence to be put in the interrogative form: (11a.) The doll that is gone, is pretty.(11b.) *Is the doll that (0) gone, is pretty?(11c.) Is the doll that is gone (0) pretty? But children do not seem to produce incorrect sentences such as (11b), and nativist linguists therefore conclude that insight into structure-dependency must be innate. (Josine A. Lalleman, The State of the Art in Second Language Acquisition Research. Investigating Second Language Acquisition, ed. by Peter Jordens and Josine Lalleman. Mouton de Gruyter, 1996) The Genitive Construction ​The genitive construction in English can . . . help us illustrate the concept of structure- dependency. In (8) we see how the genitive attaches to the noun student: (8) The students essay is very good. If we construct a longer noun phrase, the genitive s will come at the very end, or edge, of the NP, independently of the category of the word: (9) [That young student from Germany]s essay is very good.(10) [The student you were talking to]s essay is very good. The rule that determines the genitives construction is based on the Noun Phrase: s is attached to the edge of the NP. (Mireia Llinà  s et al., Basic Concepts for the Analysis of English Sentences. Universitat Autà ²noma de Barcelona, 2008) Also Known As: syntactic structure-dependency