A region where “born as girl” is a curse
At times, happening around you, break you so badly that you cannot keep silence over it. You want to burst out and cry. Here is a story of a girl (not born as girl with her own will), I personally know in my neighborhood as a neighbor friend.
They are a family of 10 persons. Parents, 7 sisters and 1 brother. My friend is at no.3, her eldest sister is 28 and brother being youngest of all is 14 years old. Her father is a merchant with a small retail shop nearby our home. The whole family is very humble and social with all vicinity.
Her eldest sister (as well as all of them are educated/studying), works as nurse in a hospital. My friend often visits me for some help in her studies and few days back I noticed that she was not normal and seemed upset. When I asked, she told that there was a marriage proposal for her eldest sister and when family of proposed groom visited them they rejected because we were not up to their level financially and could not afford dowry. While saying this she was weeping and saying that it happened many time ending up in rejection. She continued and said, we are seven. People often come, but they do not come back after they see our home, status and financial condition.
Oh God, I could feel her grief and distress. But what I could do for her. NOTHING.
Infact no one can do anything because if a problem has individuality, that can be tackled. But if a problem becomes a social norm and practice then none of individual can handle it and we need social efforts at collective level. So I decided to write about this social evil here.
I know my voice is too tiny, but atleast I am contributing my penny.
Marrying off a daughter is an onerous responsibility in our section of society and there’s nothing joyous about it left because of these trending norms. Girls are often seen as a financial liability. Middle class and poor families often start planning for their daughter’s marriage from the time she is born. Girls are considered a curse for poor families because parents see them as a burden due to the wedding expenses involved in their marriage. Her education, career, happiness and everything takes a back seat in front of her marriage.
Dowry system
is a plight in sub-continent that affects poor and lower middle class families badly. It is a centuries old tradition here where bride’s parents give cash, jewellery, home appliances, furniture, utensils or clothes to the groom’s family as part of the marriage. And with time these lists are also changing and now there are new additions to it with cars, piece of land or built home and some times bride’s parents are asked to establish a business for groom.
The wedding party
is an occasion often marked by hundreds, if not thousands, of guests, lavish banquets and venues and brides and grooms dressed out in eye popping costumes and jewellery. This creates an enormous social pressure on the bride’s family to spend lumps of money in order to impress relatives of the groom’s family. Failure to do so can have ramifications like social opprobrium, harassment and misbehaving bride for rest of married life. The family may end up borrowing money.
The weddings of the wealthy, the trappings of social tradition and the ever expanding practice of dowry put great pressure on lower middle class and poor families. The high profile weddings are setting impossibly high standards for the middle classes and the poor. Every other day media highlights such wedding functions where millions of millions are spent over such functions.
Such extra expensive marriages seem misplaced in a country where millions of people go hungry. High wedding expenditure also seems misfit in a country ridden with social inequities. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent hold four times the wealth held by the poorest 70 percent of the population.
If you go back few decades, weddings were largely family affairs and everyone pitched in to cook, decorate the house and handle all functions themselves. Now a days, weddings are more about showing off one’s wealth and status
Films and Media influence
is setting an unfair social setting, the role of Hindi film industry in creating pressure to overspend on weddings cannot be ignored. In Indian movies, wedding functions are highly glamoured events with fancy attires, and song and dance sequences in scenic locales. As cinema has a powerful hold over the mind of the masses, such depiction creates an aspiration among all classes of youth to mimic such splendor at their own weddings too.
Fashion Industry
The proliferation of international global fashion chains are further creating newer avenues for consumption at weddings among all classes. Everybody is into designer merchandise these days. Add to it the trend of hiring wedding planners, stylists, florists and multiple vendors for weddings has added so many unwanted layers to a wedding now a days. All this expense pushes up cost dramatically.
Gold ornaments
is another factor contributing to overspending. In certain regions, people explicitly demand gold as dowry in the name of ancestral tradition. Even the poorest of parents will try to give at least one gold chain to their daughter to save face.
Men have a rate card. Those with better education or secure jobs have greater brand value in the matrimonial market.
The son is seen as an investment in the future, as someone who will take care of old parents, unlike daughters who marry and leave the home. So a premium is placed on the son’s birth. As dowry is invariably involved in a daughter’s wedding, she is seen as a liability.Men have always been valued over women and the practice of dowry is an offshoot of that mindset.
Better education can empower women to stand up and challenge these practices like dowry while helping men fight the pressures dictating that they conform to such social norms.
This is not the end, I will continue with other problem areas which are equally poisonous for women and society.
…To be continued …
