Bride burning is a form of torture murder practiced in and around the Indian subcontinent. A form of dowry death, bride-burning occurs when a woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family's refusal to pay additional dowry. The wife is typically doused with kerosene, gasoline, or other flammable liquid, and set alight, leading to death by burning. Kerosene is often used as the cooking fuel for small petrol stoves, some of which are dangerous, so it allows the claim that the crime was an accident.

In 2004, bride burning was recognized as an important problem in India. In 1995, Time magazine reported that dowry deaths in India increased from around 400 a year in the early 1980s to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s. According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, there were 1,948 convictions and 3,876 acquittals in dowry death cases in 2008.

A dowry death is the death of a young woman in South Asian countries, primarily India, who is murdered or driven to suicide by her husband. This results from the husband or his family continually attempting to extract more dowry from the bride or her family. Bride burning is just one form of dowry death; acid throwing, poisoning and other forms of fatal violence also occur. Because dowry typically depends on class or socioeconomic status, women are often subjected to the dowry pressures of their future husband or his relatives.

There are at least four perspectives on why bride burning came to be and how its existence has prevailed in South Asian nations, as detailed by Avnita Lakhani in her report on bride burning titled "The Elephant in the Room Is Out of Control". These theories describe practices that contributed to the rise of dowry as a whole, thus ultimately contributing to bride burning.

One of the more culturally-founded theories suggests that in a highly patriarchal society such as India, a woman's role is defined from before she is born, which ultimately places her as lesser than men. Because she is seen as a burden and an "extra mouth to feed", her status as an economic liability promotes the idea that men, who are considered physical assets, can treat women as subservient. Once a woman marries, she is bound to her husband and his will because "society mandates obedience to her husband".

Another theory claims that consumerism has caused countries like India to become greedy. Because of this, dowry is used as a means to gain a higher socioeconomic status. As status is continually gained, the demand for bridal dowry increases in order to keep moving up the social ladder.

Lakhani also suggests that historically speaking, the dowry system may have been conceived as a way to distinguish Muslim from Hindu culture, creating a further divide within castes. A higher dowry would indicate a higher status and distinction from Islam, thus providing an incentive to demand a larger dowry.

Finally, some scholars argue that the dowry practice came out of British rule and influence in India to distinguish "different forms of marriage" between castes. When the dowry system was established within the higher castes, the British government sought to reinforce it in the lower castes as a means to eradicate their more ritualised marriages. Such forms of union were discredited until only upper-caste marriage systems were recognised.