Dowry was always evil. In China and India, for example, girls were seen as an expensive liability for a family, so much so that infanticide was popular.
Even though it is illegal today, it is still widespread, and leads to such customs as “bride burning.” When a couple are married, the groom’s family gets the dowry, but gets greedy, so pours gasoline on the new bride, sometimes still wearing her wedding dress, and burn her alive.
There is no problem with men who have been married getting remarried, so a single man could become a widower repeatedly, as his family got wealthy.
With ultrasound commonly available, as soon as couples find out they are having a girl, they abort her.
Last but not least was the practice of Suttee, or widow burning. When her husband dies, the widow is thrown on his funeral pyre.
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” General Charles Napier
I suppose I’ll have to look into this more. I have always supposed that killing one’s wife would result in, at the least, having to return the dowry. Obviously there is a glitch in the system, which needs a bit more of the gallows solution mentioned by another poster.