Some Models for Dowry Calculation

Background

This thought came while I was busy refuting a blogger whom I had met in the cyberspace through a common friend. She had written something about matrimonial ads and had bashed up mankind very unkindly through politically correct language. Added to that were some psychopaths who had boosted up her ego without a critical thought on her writting and made her believe that she was championing the cause of women. Well what followed in a nutshell was that I engaged myself in a debate with her and when she saw the ground beneath her slipping, she gave a few lectures to me on humilty and respect and vanished away with a huff! Well insecure people can never sell secure ideas. 

Anyway I dedicate this piece of writing to that very individual who provided the much in demand food for thought for these models to germinate in my cerebral space. 

Approach 1- An econometric model for dowry calculation

Problem definition: Marriage can be defined as a transaction of goods, services and emotions between partners.

 

The variables for transaction and the means to measure them: Three variables I am taking for defining transactions - goods, services and emotions.

1- Emotions can be measured as EQ of each partners and a correlation of them can be entered in the model

2- Services can be measured as the "number of trips/month" to finalize the match. In affection marriages its usually very high since lot of convincing stuff to make the families agree has to take place

A note on affection marriage - The term affection marriage has been coined by me to define what is called as love marriage by the blind-in-love mortals. This is because these love marriages are the ones which provides the fodder for the numbers to swell up the divorce registers. My question is, "Can love end?" After lot of debates and arguments with self and critically observing such affairs (I mean that word!) I arrived at a conclusion - "That love can end if its done with a reason. Anything that is done with a reason ends with a reason." But love is reason-less. And hence what is prevalent before us is affection marriage in the garb of love marriage. I define affection marriage as a time bound emotional contract that builds up between two individuals for a tangible reason. 

3- Goods we can keep as a question. Rather we shall discover how much dowry one must pay to keep the marriage working.

4- This can be regressed against the "nember of years one wants to stay in the marriage" which can be measured as "anniversary".

 

Equation: Anniversary = y + EQ + no. of trips/month + Goods to be given ( y = intercept).

 

This way one can calculate the goods or dowry one has to give/take scientifically.

 

Approach 2- An alternative appraoch

This model is a different way to look at the problem of dowry.

 

Again keeping the same variables as defined previously.....

 1- Anniversary is directly proportional to higher correlation of EQ scores. - This is pretty logical I guess and no need of any explanation.

2- Anniversary is inversely proportional to service exchanged. Now service exchange is defined as no. of trips/month made by partners to satisfy families to agree to their union. Hence this leads to emotional drain and hence emotional loss. Many times they have to abandon their plans and an "affection marriage" fails to initiate. I want to clarify this more. It may happen that the partners may not marry at all to anyone in their lifetime resisting the resistance. But thats beyond the scope of the model. The assumption is the partners do eventually marry each other. It follows the success-only criterion.

3- Anniversary is directly proportional to goods or dowry given/taken. I take a more economic standpoint here. More the dowry got, more the spending/purchasing power of the husband for the wife and hence less percieving of the wife as an economic burden.

 

So the equation becomes: Anniversary = k X EQ X months/trip X goods

 

Facts abt equation (units): k = constant, EQ = no units, trip = measured in kms., goods = measured in Rs (lakhs), Anniversary = years

 

So k's unit is km/Rs (lakhs) (since year and month cancel each other !)

 

I define "k" as the "mile-age constant of a marriage"; and its implications I give below. 

 

Implications:

As one can see, if the denominator, that's goods, increases, the mileage constant decreases, i.e. the distance between the guy and girl (physical and assumed to be emotional) decreases with every extra rupee spent; it means the guy and the girl are ready to bear anything and stay on since a huge cost has been involved. So high dowry marriages are "stable", stability again being defined purely based on no. of years spent together. No taking into account of emotions.

 

Mile age constant has to be decreased for marriage to last - thats the thesis. So one more way  to decrease the "k" is to decrease number of trips. It happens if parents are cooperative and realize marriage is the business of two individuals and all they have the role is to felciliate the union. Hence dowry asked is decreased too. Such marriages are stable provided the EQ of the individuals have a high correlation and assumed not to change over time.

 

Societal implications of the current model:

1- A database of mile-age constants of all marriages in every community and caste can be made. This shall help us in calculating the dowry needed. Hence this shall fecilitate an advance planning by parents.

 

2- If it is an "affection-marriage", well the parents can actaully calculate the trade-off and hence based on the demand and desire can control the number of trips made by the parties for convincing them

 

3- The partners can actually calculate their years of togetherness and this shall motivate them to stay along and hence may increase the potential stability of marriage by making them submit to each other and hence understand each other better.

Approach 3- Dowry viewed as economic asset by the groom's family

Family A will get a bride from family B.

 

The dowry must be calculated based on the most sensitive expenditure of a family that will be affected on getting another girl. Hence according to me its food. Hence one must calculate the avg. monthly expenditure of food of Family A, say "x"

 

Marriage is nothing but can be viewed as transferring of one individual from one house to another permanently assuming the marital status to be infinite. Hence the monthly expenses on food for Family B can be calculated, say "y". Let the family mambers in this family be "a". So "y" can be leveraged on these family members for simplicity. So its "y/a" on the girl for share of expenditure.

 

Dowry is nothing but transferring this "y/a" from Family B to Family A aggregated to the number of years the marital bond lasts.

 

Now the life expectancy for men is 70 years in India (according to WHO report, 2006) and 67 for women. So marriage shall last till both the partners are alive and this is again assuming the bond is infinite and not broken by discord.

 

People marry in modern India at the age of 25 years minimum. So marriage lasts for 42 years.

 

Hence dowry to be paid = y/a X 12 X 42 rupees.

 

This is scientific way of determining again the dowry to be paid and has utility value rather than the show off value.

 

A Note and some concluding comments 

Dowry was never meant to be a contribution to the family's expenditure. Actually there is no justification of people asking such huge amounts. The incremental increase in family's expenses thanks to coming of a girl into its fold is very less compared to the wealth exchanged in name of dowry. Dowry is rather a show of power of individuals to society about the quality of life they are leading. Hence marriages are such expensive affairs. But if you look critically you shall see what we call marriage is actually chanting of a few mantrams and tying a knot. Throw in some new pairs of clothes for the couple. Its darn simple ceremony. Just blown into bits by the show-off. Personally I will love to marry in a court.

I am against dowry and so are many. But yet the system still exists. As a scientist, I love working with reality and not idealism . So refrain from judgements unlike my friend to whom I have dedicated this piece. 

 

The US Financial Crisis - How am I affected?

Well people this is a small attempt on my part to make the financial crisis going on rationally explainable to the common man. Trust me, none of us are immune to it. 

To start with lets remember the fundamental of business is transaction and is explained by the barter system which is nothing but exchanging goods needed and of utility value between two parties or persons. Now money is also a type of 'goods'. The importance of money lies in the fact that its utility value can be generalized across transactions i.e. it can be exchanged for all type of goods and commodities. Hence its utility value is highest. 

Now in the 'market' which is nothing but a contextual scenario where the transactions occur, the people (party 1) suddenly find that the type of goods produced by the firms (party 2) are not satisfactory and hence they do not give the money to the firms and take their goods in exchange. The people start hoarding the money for they do not trust the firms and their produce anymore. Therefore money (dollars here) slowly start vanishing from the market while number of commodities increase. The firms do all the gimmicks possible like giving heavy discounts and reducing the price but to no effect since the well informed consumers are pretty sure that the commodities are not worth exchanging for the money they have. Hence this lack of liquidity drives firms to closure. Now firms have also borrowed heavily from te investment banks which are nothing but financial sources for the firms. With the closure of firms, there is a loss of business and liquidity for these banks. Hence they too wind up business. 

Well what I wrote till now is the macro scenario. But how does it affect me and India in general? Well since everybody wants to save up and hoard money, the interest rates will go up. Hence loans will be given but with higher interest rates, since no one wants to part with money. So those of us who wants to buy a house or a vehicle will do better to wait for sometime in future. 

Because the currency of US is dollars and this is what is facing the crunch (putting little economical terms - the demand for dollar is high while supply is drastically low), its value appreciates with respect to other currencies; here we shall take our currency - rupee. Now if I buy something from US, I have to pay them in their currencies or dollars. Since more number of rupees equals one dollar now, I have to shell out more money. Hence imports will be hit badly since for the same quantity of imports, the nation has to shell out more money. On the other hand, exports will be non-profitable. Simple logic again - there is no demand of the commodities in US since people are interested in hoarding dollars than spending them freely for these commodities.

As I mentioned before, its better to stop buying houses and vehicles now, well the real estate business will be hit due to this decison of mine. And so is the automobile industry. TATA- Nano project may not be that badly hit for the customer segment its targetting can afford one lakh. But TATA may still face loss in aggregate in this project for it may not generate volumes thanks to the financial crisis. Software sector is one more sector that will be badly hit since most of the projects come from US. Since firms there are saving up by cutting costs and making calculated moves, no projects come to India and hence its psedo-employment for the professionals. Since there are no consumers, the operational activities of firms here will come down. This will result in lay-offs and loss of employement to many graduates being churned out of numerous colleges. I sometimes wonder why is education industry not tied up or affected by the financial crisis! Added to this, inflation is already at 12% in India. With no money flowing into pocket, how can one dream of buying the commodities despite the discounts and promotional offers? In a nutshell economy crashes, for we are too dependent on US. Industries which are independent like media, telecom and insurance will remain relatively unaffected. My Puja and Diwali expenditure has to reduce too sadly !

So when shall it end? Till all the loss making firms wind up and banks are left to finance only firms that will prosper. Then money flows in and people prioritise their demands and are ready to spend. Another way is if the US Federal Reserve (like our RBI) comes out and lends more money to the banks to enable them to lend out to these firms to save themselves. 

Till then all of us have to wait and watch and hope that  our leaders at Delhi do their level best to isolate our economy as far as possible from other countries. Complete isolation is not possible yet the sensitive sectors must be isolated. An internal market for software services ought to be developed and our industries should try to come up to offer a market for it. Hoping for the best !

Self - Orientation Model of Leadership - An alternative thought

Introduction

Well before I develop this model here, let me confess that I am writing it out as a bored individual who has been made to read up plenty of stuff in leadership since last three months and who found them all inefficient to explain and understand one individual whom I consider as an awesome leader - Sri Sathya Sai Baba. The trait theories are useless in explaining for Baba has all the traits identified and much more. The behavioral theories are of no use since we do not know the situation to predict the behavior and in Swami's case its highly complex. The situational theories were of little help since I never believe that situation determines a leader but a leader determines a situation. The latest fad - charismatic leadership is again of little value. Baba is charismatic but then what indeed is charishma? Is it not a way of doing things again - a part of behavioral group of theories? In my view charishma is just a subset of behaviors. All behaviors can quailify to be called as charismatic provided they have the right audience. But Baba appeals to all and evokes both kind of emotions and reactions in varieties of people -- positive and negative. So charishma fails too for it does not help distinguish the specific qualities that make people adore Him and hate Him. The same qualities do both the jobs.

So I percieve this as a gap in the literature for none of these theory is able to explain the leadership of such a personality as Sri Sathya Sai Baba. This is my attempt based on my experience and study of Him to devise a leadership model that explains His style of leadership. I name it The Self-Orientation Model Of Leadership.

The Theory

The primary thesis of this model is what I call a dynamic interchange between self-expansion and self-isolation. I define both the terms below.

Self-expansion

I define self expansion as an attribute that enables the leader to identify with the cognitive and affective state of his/her follower and hence make them feel one with him/her. In this state, the leader lives not for him/her, but for his/her followers. He/she completely identifies with the euphoria or suffering of the followers and sometimes may forget his/her own existence. The followers are nothing but an expanded being of the leader. For people who are unaware of Baba, may be comfortable connecting M.K.Gandhi while reading this. He practiced self-expansion religiously identifying himself with the rural population of India which was predominant pre-independence. Through self expansion he brought about a massive change in the image of the Congress party which was till then dominated by some individuals from elite class who had a misconception that their demands reflected the demands of the Indian people. 

Self-isolation

This attribute I define as the ability of the leader to isolate himself from being carried away by the emotions of his/her followers and maintaining his/her own identity. It may sound a bit out of place but I argue that this attribute is what helps leaders to sustain their influence. They do things not because followers want, but because they want. They are neither task centric or people centric but they are self-centric. It may not be confused with selfishness but rather may be understood as a sustained attempt to maintain one's own identity. In the mission of being people centric, often leaders become too mixed up in mundane crowd and lose their shine. These leaders who practice the self-orientation model, are neither people centric nor task centric. They do both simultaneously. They involve with the people to do the task and then they isolate themselves when the kill is being enjoyed. They are not party to it. 

This attribute of self-isolation is where many of the leaders failed or fail since:

1- Its human to enjoy the prize and be taken in by applause

2- They get involved with people too much to lose sight of further task. On the other hand a self-oriented leader is continuously on a plan for further conquests. He does not rest on laurels.

So its a continuous flip-flop between self expansion and self isolation and it is catalysed by a task or series of tasks. This flip flop helps such a leader to maintain his/her identity and hence sustained control and influence on his/her followers, since the later never lose sight of him/her that way. They never know what is coming next and they are always waiting while enjoying the present. Involvement in the present while hoping for the future are the characteristics of a follower of a self-oriented leader. This is why most often spiritual personalities are self-oriented leaders. This model I argue can be generalized to all spiritual leaders.

So can practice of this model make us spiritual? Thats another research question! Till then amen!