In most societies, the social practice of paying dowry tends to decline and sometimes to disappear. In contrast, a system of marriages negotiated between families continues to exist in India; a marriage squeeze and a real dowry inflation are observed throughout the country. This paper brings a nice application of methods used in the classical matching markets: existence of stable outcomes and a minimum equilibrium dowry, coincidence between the set of stable outcomes and the set of competitive equilibrium outcomes. We further discuss strategic questions and address issues comparative statics when a marriage squeeze yields in the Indian marriage market.