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Sikh religious leaders have issued an edict to end lavish weddings that involve days of drinking alcohol and eating as a measure to discourage dowry demands.
By enforcing austere weddings, the Delhi Sikh Temple Management Committee also hopes to prevent the outlawed practice of female infanticide among Sikhs.
"It is this splurge of wealth on ceremonies which is promoting dowry and practices like female feticide," committee head Paramjit Singh Sarna told a community that likes to flaunt its wealth and celebrates weddings ostentatiously with cocktails and banquets, often lasting several days.
The committee recommends a simple wedding before the auspicious pre-noon period inside a Sikh temple followed by a teetotal and vegetarian reception. Sarna warned that those who didn't follow these guidelines would not be issued wedding certificates.
Girls across India, especially among Sikhs, are considered a liability as expensive dowries have to be paid at their weddings, which themselves can cost a fortune.
Even the poorest of Sikh peasants are under tremendous pressure to organise lavish weddings, often by taking usurious loans.
The Sikhs' home state of Punjab, north of Delhi, has 793 girls for every 1000 boys, the lowest such ratio in the country as many female fetuses are aborted following ultrasound tests proscribed by law for several years.
In some Punjab villages dominated by the agriculturist Jat community - also known for their chauvinism - the figure has dropped to as low as 550 girls for every 1000 males and activists say the gap between the sexes is growing.
India's national average, according to the 2001 Census, stood at 933 females for every 1000 males.
According to the British medical journal Lancet, about 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in India over the past two decades, resulting in the skewed ratio between men and women.
The Akal Takht, the primary seat of Sikh religious authority and central altar for Sikh political assembly in the holy city of Amritsar, recently issued an edict banning female feticide in response to the widening gender gap.
Priests have been debating among themselves the dangers of the falling percentage of the female population but have had little success to date in warning the community of the consequences.
"Punjab's intensely patriarchal social structure has for many generations supported a distinct gender bias against women," said Rainuka Dagar, of the Institute for Development and Communication in the state capital Chandigarh.
"Most people are either ignorant of the existence of laws enacted eight years ago banning female feticide or are openly abusive of them."
