A
neighbour, a divorcee, wants to get married again and is concerned
about finding the right person this time round. She was the victim
of domestic violence the last time round. She had endured the
marriage for 10 long years despite being very well qualified and in a
very responsible position at work. An acquaintance, a divorcee, has
got married to another divorcee and is happily married since many
years. Look at the matrimonial columns and one sees a separate one
for divorcees. There is even an online matrimonial site for
divorcees – secondshaadi.com
It
is evident that the number of divorces in India is increasing. Where
“divorce” was a dirty word not too long ago and being a divorcee
carried a social stigma, making it difficult for the person to be
married again (especially if it was a woman, so what even if she was
an “innocent” divorcee – which all divorcees used to be if one
were to believe the matrimonial ads – whatever that meant).
Obviously something has changed, but what? The common conception
seems to be that women becoming financially independent and empowered
is a major reason for the increasing number of divorces. But is it
really so?
There
are
a
number
of
dynamics
in
any
marriage
that
lead
it
to
being
a
success
or
a
failure.
What
was
the
reason
for
the
number
of
divorces
in
India
being
globally
one
of
the
lowest?
Odes
have
been
sung
to
the
social
structure
which
supports
a
strong
family
system
which
in
turn
rests
on
the
institution
of
marriage.
So
what
has
changed
in
the
social
structure
for
more
marriages
to
fall
apart?
Earlier
men
and
women
stayed
close
to
their
families
and
social
circles
and
were
bound
by
social
pressures
to
conform
to
certain
patterns
of
behaviour.
More
recently,
however,
with
the
globalization
of
our
economy,
with
more
job
opportunities
opening
up
in
the
cities,
more
and
more
people
have
moved
away
from
the
family
and
started
living
on
their
own.
They
have
effectively
managed
to
break
free
from
the
stranglehold
of
social
pressures.
Alternative
patterns
of
living
such
as
“live-in
relationships”
have
cropped
up
where
people
may
choose
not
to
get
married
in
the
first
place.
Living
in
a
big
city
away
from
home
offers
the
luxury
of
anonymity,
making
this
possible.
Where
arranged
marriages
used
to
be
the
norm
in
the
past,
young
people
probably
felt
obliged
to
continue
in
marriages
– happy
or
unhappy
– to
keep
up
social
appearances
and
for
the
sake
of
family
honour.
Now,
when
more
and
more
young
people
find
their
own
partners
and
stay
away
from
home,
such
pressures
obviously
decrease.
This
might
explain,
in general,
the
higher
divorce
rate
and why it is
more
an
urban
pattern
than
a
rural
one
where
the
old
social
structure
seems
to
remain
intact.
India
is a country of many contradictions. Although we see so many social
changes, scratch the surface and we find that not much has changed in
our family hierarchy. If anything, our so-called “culture and
traditions” are being grossly misuse to serve personal interests
and to make a woman more subservient than she ever was. Today she
has to excel at academics, extra-curricular activities, out-do her
male counterparts to make a place for herself in her place of work –
YET
when
it comes to marriage and home, nothing has changed for her. She
still has to take care of the home as efficiently as she would if she
was not working, make sure her kids do not suffer in any way
(nutritionally, academically, emotionally .....) just because of her
job ..... in short she has to be a Superwoman. As if all these
demands placed on her are not enough, her position in the family
hierarchy has not improved any. She still has to place her in-laws
above her own parents. The number of women who complain of mental
and emotional harassment at the hands of parents-in-law are not a
few. It matters not then that she is a 60 year old woman herself
retire from the highest echelons of Indian officialdom, she is still
expected to toe the line. It matters not that not only is she
independent but also supports the family in many ways, she is still
seen as a “responsibility”. One might wonder why she does not
walk out of the marriage or tell them where they get off. This is
the sad reality of the Indian daughter-in-law. She might choose to
stay on for the sake of her parents. She might do so for the sake
for her children. She might just choose to do so because it is still
not easy for an Indian woman to live alone as a divorcee. If this
was the story for a woman who is 60 years old, the same still holds
true for a woman in her 30s. She is just not mentally tuned to the
idea of a “divorce”. So one can well imagine what a woman must
be pushed to if she chooses to separate. Well, there might be
exceptions, but here I have talked of the more common category of
woman. It is a sad commentary, indeed, to think that to this day,
many women, despite being financially independent, do not walk out of
unhappy or abusive marriages.
If
indeed there were women who said “enough is enough” and walked
out when they should have, we would probably have read lesser reports
of dowry deaths, forced abortions of female foeticides and the like.
We would not hear of people who divorced their wives for not having
kids or for having only daughters.
Having said this, there is no denying that the younger generation is (again a generalization here) tending to be more self-centred and growing more intolerant than the older ones (may be they have the option and luxury of doing so which we did not) and that this may result in a small proportion of divorces. Though I really doubt, we in India get to see many cases of divorces on flippant grounds like “I don't like the way my spouse snores or “my husband has lost his hair since the day I married him”.
So to conclude that
empowerment of women is the sole or the major cause for the growing
number of divorces is to shut one's eye to the picture as a whole.
Even if it were true, it would only imply that the durability of
Indian marriages in the past was not a result of any special virtue
of our culture, but due to a lack of any viable options for women
living in unhappy marriages. That would amount to nothing better
than the most abject form of slavery. At the most one might say that
women whose lives in a marriage have become so unendurable end up
walking out because they have the financial option of doing so, the
actual cause for the divorce being that their lives have become
unendurable. Were women to walk out of marriages just because they
were”empowered” or “financial independent”, would it not be
more rational to believe that those women would have preferred to
stay single in the first place or to opt for a live-in relationship?
This blog has been submitted for the 4th Annual International Women's Day Contest hosted by Indusladies.com
