Chapter 7: Women, Marriage, and Family

At least from this reading, there is nothing easy about being a woman in India. There were several things that I had heard about India before reading this article that I assumed had ended…like infanticide of female children…that indeed have not ended. This was a shock to me, because even though I knew it did go on at one point, after reading about how much India has moved on from the stereotypical images…this is one that is still around, which is saddening to me.
It is always interesting for me to study women in different countries, because I am also a history major and have taken the course, “Women in European History” and am currently taking “Southern Women of the 18-19th Centuries.” Therefore, I often find comparisons from these classes to other women’s groups I study. I did this with this reading regarding what Indians regard as the “good woman”. A good woman for them is supposed to restrict her personal mobility, control her sexuality, and subordinate herself to her family’s interests. It also states that Indian women want to be the perfect wives and devote themselves to their husband’s best interests. This is VERY similar to the expectations of a Southern woman in the 17-1800’s because she was expected to be domestic, pure, and self sacrificing (as well as pious). I found this parallel very interesting as I reflected on readings from both classes.
Finally, I also was interested to see how marriages worked in India because I had so many images of arranged marriages, etc. in my mind that I wanted to see if they were true. Again, turns out, at least in part, they are. I thought it was so interesting that instead of wedding announcements, they put singles ads in the Sunday newspaper! Also, sometimes children are “wed” as young children and then a commitment ceremony is performed secondarily after the acts of marriage can be performed. For women who want our of an arranged marriage, they can either elope, refuse a proposal, run away, or disappear from the honeymoon. But it isn’t as easy as that…if the families have already exchanged dowry items, everything gets more complicated because sometimes things cant just be given back. I thought it was strange how if this happened, another woman would be offered as a substitute. My initial reaction to this is to be outraged, but after thinking about it, I realize that this is not so strange for them because it is their culture. Although they may not all like it, it is not strange to them in the way it is to me because I am the one living in a culture that is almost totally opposite in regards to marriage practices. Therefore, this was a good lesson in keeping a cultural relativist mindset.