Logic of Dowry?

I remember my mother rebuking my father one day: "You thought you would not require the wealth my father offered you and said no but see how my brothers are living their luxurious lives on the property that ought to have been ours. And we have to work so hard now to make our living".
This after my father turned down dowry offered by his Father in law as he was the only graduate son in law amongst ten others. My Father thought he was being a Progressive thinker
and he became the butt of my mother's jokes.
It is now common in Indian Media to highlight so called dowry deaths and dowry arrests. Feminist Organisations fight against Dowry practices and so called Reformers claim that Dowry is an uncivilised practice in the soceity. Some even say that the male species are a greedy lot unlike the females who supposedly not greedy. Right?
What is Dowry? A gift given to the daughter's family on the occasion of her wedding. Maybe voluntarily and maybe often on demand now. The Law prohibits the practice of dowry and this becomes a crime when sometimes the brides's family objects to the demands usually after the engagement.
Let us work our Dowry.This gift of Dowry called wealth is nothing but money in a different form.
When a search for a Bride or a Groom was launched by Parents, what do they look for? Family Background, Education, Career, Looks and Character. Right?
By Family Background, what do we mean? Whether the family members have or held positions of power and whether they have weath formidable compared to one's own. By education we mean ability to further one's career , which in turn is the ability to make money. This is almost always the case when a groom has to be fixed. It is common to say that if the prospective prosperous groom has had a greyish character, that he will become an angel after marriage and youthful encounters are acceptable if the other parameters such as family background were impressive.
Accepting that grooms search for prosperous brides in with greed, what makes the brides's families search for grooms who were supposedly settled, earning money in plenty.
Will any bride be willing to marry a groom poorer than she was? Will she make Character as the primary virtue and be willing to live in poor environment for the sake of love? Can you find an advertisement in the lakhs of classified matrimonial advertisements asking for a Groom who has character and who will love the bride until his last breadth? If this is the priority, then why should this be taken for granted.
The fact remains that both the female and male species are a greedy lot. When it hurts them, the females call the males greedy. And Men make use of women's parental wealth when it is an additional perk to them.Women are after money as much as Men are and definitely their intensity for extravagance is no less than the Males. Remember Imelda Marcos and Jayalalitha.

Dowry will exist in some form as long as Man (and Woman)doesnt grow to be civilised. And blaming each other is only a pretension of goodness. It is on the rise as human beings try to live a life of comparitive wealth and not contentment.