Unfortunately, an event which shouldn’t be the single most defining moment in one’s life turns out to be the most crucial one in our lives. Although the intricate details of marriage might vary from culture to culture, the overarching phenomenon connects the dots across the globe. India has one of the highest rates of female foeticides in the world. Right from the start of one’s life, we can see how society congratulates you when a boy is born, and sympathies are passed on when a girl is born. Do you ever think how this attitude of gender inequality is directly linked to marriage? Boys are considered primary income holders when they grow up; their value is worthy of the dowry when they marry and bring a daughter-in-law home. Girls, conversely, no matter how educated they become and how high they earn, are considered to get married off one day, obviously with a dowry. This vicious cycle has no end, especially with colloquial language addressing girls as “paraya dhan’’ or “other’s wealth”.
Wedding rituals have always offended me. It’s the same reason I never dreamt of a wedding day. I was thrilled in my live-in relationship, but we had our list of practical reasons to make it official. The following year was the most difficult, convincing our respective sides of the families to the marriage. While my family was mainly worried initially about an inter-religious marriage and my religion getting converted, my partner’s side of the family had various issues, all primarily related to gender biases. The highlight of their worries was that a girl from my community (Bengali speaking) would have a voice of her own and hence won’t fit into the patriarchal setup of a typical North Indian family.
Months passed by with negotiations and no conclusion could be reached. Every time we agreed to one of the elder’s whims and fancies, another request came up the next day. During that time, I could see many of my friends getting married following all the patriarchal rituals. Conversations with them would include justifications behind the norms and why doing it for a day or week won’t matter in the long run because everyone else would be happy. I pondered a lot and, at last, asked myself a question – If I ever had a child, would they be proud of my decision that makes me happy and proud, or everyone else be happy and proud? I got an obvious answer. I needed to be happy and proud with my partner’s support; nothing else mattered in the long run.
My partner and I married under the Special Marriage Act, which our Constitution and not religious laws bind. Next, we decided to have a destination wedding ceremony where the bills would be split between us, and the groom is not necessarily coming to take away the bride from her place to his place. I had spent 24 hours shortlisting songs for our Sangeet night (musical night) to ensure no songs in any language with sexist lyrics were played. I even argued with my childhood friends over specific song selections they wanted to perform. Again, I have no regrets.
If I have learnt anything while planning our wedding, people, even very educated ones, have internalized patriarchy so much that when the misfits like me start pointing out issues, we become the trouble-makers. I remember many friends discussing how they had to take medicines to delay or prepone their periods because you can’t get married on your periods. Our society considers Periods taboo, and religious angles are attributed to a natural body fluid. I am sure nothing must be mentioned explicitly in Hindu or Jain scriptures banning women with periods from performing certain activities. If you want to know exactly how much of a taboo period is in our culture, watch the movie “The Great Indian Kitchen.” Hopefully, I’ll write about it too someday. There’s absolutely nothing impure about menstrual blood. I remember attending all my pre-wedding functions, including the religious ones on my periods. I was happy that my periods naturally stopped on the morning of my wedding day. I could do without worrying about cramps on my big day. Because who loves cramps, right?! I remember as a teenager, although my family was pretty liberal, they wanted me to stay away from religious events if my cycle coincided with them. This changed when I started questioning the logic behind them while growing up, and today, no one has any issues anymore.
Our mehendi ceremony was for everyone, irrespective of their gender. Also, in an age of growing Islamophobia, we were happy to book an entire team of Muslim makeup and mehendi artists. In traditional Bengali weddings, there is a ceremony called “Dodhi Mongola,” where you wake up before sunrise, are fed sweets and are made to wear red and white bangles before fasting for the whole day. Another infuriating thing during my ritual research was that while both the bride and the groom are supposed to fast when it comes to parents, only the bride’s parents need to fast. Not to say, this ceremony was altogether skipped from our wedding. Everyone present in Goa had a hearty breakfast before the fun haldi ceremony started. I wanted a female priest to facilitate the sunset wedding ceremony by the beach. Alas! We couldn’t find any in Goa. To book and take a team of female priests from Kolkata to Goa would have been a pricey affair. So I compromised with a male priest. Luckily, he was well-versed with the “new-age” marriages where traditional rituals could be modified to bring about more gender equality in the union. I also wanted to do away with another strange obsession, which might lead to even parents begging to get their daughters’ married with – gold! In India, the primary component of a wedding dowry consists of gold. I ensured that I didn’t spend even a penny on gold. I am glad my wedding pictures look precious, without any gold.
“Kanyadaan (giving away of the daughter by the father to the groom)”, “Sakha pola,” and “mangal sutra” were entirely omitted from our wedding. I am no object that can be given away or donated to someone; no one owns me. Also, I will not carry any additional patriarchal symbols of marriage that my partner doesn’t need to wear. As a woman, I deny having the whole onus of the relationship on me. It’s that simple. My partner and I walked together to the “mandap/wedding stage” hand in hand. No one needed to carry me, which is another typical wedding custom.
Apart from the male priest, my only other cringe moments were my partner putting a dot of vermillion on me (an equal non-believer like me) and my aunt putting a toe ring on me, gifted by my mother-in-law. I have never understood the obsession with vermilion/sindoor and will never do too. I remember many friends/family telling my partner to put some more appropriately. We chose to ignore the petty comments. It’s also amusing that while menstrual sanitary products are heavily taxed in this country, vermillion isn’t. In a country with a global hunger index rank of 107 out of 121, surely people can’t afford sanitary products, which is like another whole spectrum of gender inequality to be covered in probably another article soon.
But for now, let’s return to our first question – is feminist marriage a myth or a reality?! A wedding can be a feminist institution, or maybe it cannot, or it can also be anything in this wide range. The real question here is, how do you want it to be? The agency of change needs to be channelized by you first. After all, people only make up societal thinking and norms. For me, it’s been more than a year since we married. The patriarchal questions never go. When is the baby coming, and so on? But I know I’ll deal with it just like we dealt with our families to have a marriage incorporating gender equality. Things don’t get served to women on a platter in any patriarchal society. But that doesn’t mean you will stop advocating for your rights.
I have also seen staunch feminists on social media criticizing women who share their wedding stories with the progressive elements they had incorporated into them. For radical feminists, this isn’t enough. Yes, in an ideal world, it isn’t enough. The ideal situation would have been having a beach party after the registry marriage or continuing the live-in relationship. But it’s important to understand that not all of us come from the same background; everyone’s struggles are different. No one knows how much effort it takes to break generational curses, even for minor things like wearing a mangal sutra. Let’s make sisterhood truly powerful in this era of feminist marriages!