Source: Stearns, P. N., Gosch, S.S., and Grieshaber, E.P. Documents in World History: Volume 2 – The Modern Centuries: From 1500 to the Present. NY: Pearson Education, Inc. 2009.
I. Activating Prior Knowledge
The establishment of Indian independence in 1947 led to important legal reforms in gender relations. Voting rights were extended to women in the Constitution of 1950, which also outlawed discrimination by sex. Laws adopted somewhat later provided for divorce by mutual consent, banned polygamy (except among Indian Muslims), and established the right of women to have abortions.
The new laws benefitted upper-class, well-educated Hindu women who took advantage of increased opportunities for careers in politics, business, and education. However, despite the laws, career women in India were often unable to win acceptance as equals by their male colleagues and associates. Circumstances were far worse for the hundreds of millions of poor women, most of whom lived in India’s 560,000 rural villages. For these women, issues such as access to the most minimal level of education, obtaining adequate nutrition and basic health care (especially relating to childbirth), and opportunities for paid work of any kind remained major concerns.
In the 1970s, the continuing obstacles Indian women faced led to the emergence of a feminist movement. As their counterparts did in other countries, Indian feminists founded organizations and journals, conducted research on gender issues, lobbied governmental officials, became active in the labor movement, ran for public office, and organized protest demonstrations. The striking achievements in recent decades of women writers, such as Anita Desai, Gita Mehta, and Arundhati Roy, gave literary expression to the new feminist activism.
Indian feminists have had to face more difficult challenges compared to their counterparts in the West. The tradition of purdah (the physical exclusion of women) continues to be significant in India’s villages. In addition, owing to widespread poverty and the social pressure on families to provide dowries for their daughters, female infanticide in some rural regions is still a serious problem. Finally, there is widespread prejudice in India against widows, a lingering legacy of the once-significant practice of widow-suicide (sati).
II. Setting A Purpose for Reading
As you read about the lives of women in India, compare the traditional roles of women to more modern roles in India? How are these ideas being influenced by Western movements such as feminism? How do arranged marriages promote or inhibit the rights of women in India?
III. Reading the Text (Read, Re-Read, and Read Again)
Excerpt #1 – Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal – Spinning Wheel
In March 1922, Gandhiji (Mohandas Gandhi) was arrested and sentenced to six years imprisonment. He was released on January 12, 1924, before the expiration of his term. This earlier noncooperation movement was confined largely to men and was less extensive than the satyagraha movement of 1930-32. Women were expected to participate in processions and attend all Congress meetings, however, so with Mother and my two older sisters, Chandra and Janak, I used to join all such functions. I would like my readers to visualize the restricted life women led, even in a province so progressive as the Punjab. Women hardly ever ventured beyond the four walls of their homes, except to visit relatives or to attend a religious festival. My mother’s aunt always wore a shawl over her sari when she went visiting. I suppose that could be considered as a sort of Hindu burqa [garment that covers the head, face and body of the wearer] although her face was left uncovered. In that atmosphere, for the women to leave their homes and walk in a procession was a big step forward.
***
The main work of the women, as envisaged by the Congress, was to propogate the use of khadi. Women appealed to other women to discard foreign cloth. A number of songs were composed to bring this point home. Not all families could afford to throw away their clothes and buy a completely new wardrobe, but all the women had a couple of khadi saris, which they wore to all the meetings and processions. It was extremely difficult to forego buying the lovely materials available; in contrast, khadi was coarse and rough and not easily available. Our own textile industry had been completely destroyed by the British. It is said that the Indian muslin was so fine and soft that an entire sari could pass through a ring. All the foreign cloth collected by Congress would be consigned to the flames in a huge bonfire.
***
I have forgotten the name of that place, but it was a sort of miniature Jallianwala Bagh [the site of the 1919 Amritsar massacre], surrounded by tall houses and having only one entry. As the meeting progressed, the police walked in armed with metal-tipped lathis [long heavy sticks]. They declared the meeting illegal and requested that all women leave. The women understood that the men would be beaten once they left, so they refused to go. The excitement was intense and I was shouting slogans at the top of my voice. Those were the days when the British still remembered their chivalry. The police were not authorized to lathi-charge the men for fear of hitting the women. They tried persuasion and finally permitted the organizers to wind up the meeting and disperse. What a triumphant procession we made, parading through the streets of Lahore, celebrating our victory through nonviolence. Slogans were raised all along the route. I was only eleven years old and my excitement knew no bounds.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. Based on your reading of the passage, how did women impact the non-cooperation and non-violent protests against the British in India? How might the events and actions of the women in India from 1900-1950’s impact or alter the lives of women in India since that time?
Excerpt #2 – “Love and Marriage” from Manushi Magazine
Feminists, socialists and other radicals often project the system of arranged marriages as one of the key factors leading to women’s oppression in India. This view derives from the West, which recognizes two supposedly polar opposite forms of marriage – “love marriage” versus arranged marriage. “Love marriages” are assumed to be superior because they are supposedly based on romance, understanding, and mutual love – they are said to facilitate compatibility. In “love marriages” the persons concerned are supposed to have married out of idealistic considerations while arranged marriages are assumed to be based on materialistic considerations, where parents and family dominate and deny individual choice to the young people. Consequently, family arranged marriages are believed to be lackluster and loveless. It is assumed that in arranged marriages compatibility rarely exists because the couples are denied the opportunity to discover areas of common interests and base their life together on mutual understanding. Moving away from family arranged marriages towards love marriages is seen as an essential step towards building a better life for women. To it the social reformers add another favourite mantra – dowryless marriages as proof that money and status considerations play no role in determining the choice of one’s life partner. The two together – that is, a dowryless love marriage – [are] projected as the route to a happy married life.
Does experience bear this out? From what I have seen of them, “love marriages” compel me to conclude that most of them are not based on love and often end up being as big a bore or fiasco as many arranged marriages. Among the numerous cases I know I have found that often there is nothing more than a fleeting sexual attraction which does not last beyond the honeymoon period. And then the marriage is as loveless or even worse than a bad arranged marriage. Nor have I found any evidence that material considerations do not play as important a role in people’s choice when they decide to “fall in love” with someone with a view to matrimony…
***
Likewise, sons of senior bureaucrats, ambassadors, and top industrialists could have the choicest pick among the beauties and cuties of Miranda House. But a man whose father was a small shopkeeper in Kamla Nagar or a clerk in a government office stood no chance, no matter how bright or decent he might be. I witnessed several instances of my fellow students ditching a man they had been having an affair with for years as soon as someone from a wealthier background appeared on the scene. Often they would not even bother to hide the crassness of their calculations; a friend conveniently “fell out of love” with her boyfriend who owned a motorbike in favour of someone who had a car to take her out on dates.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. What are the arguments for and against arranged marriages? What are the arguments for and against love-based marriages? Based on the arguments presented, which type of marriage would you prefer? Explain your response.
Excerpt #3 – Self Arranged Marriages
Critics of the family arranged marriage system in India have rightly focused on how prospective brides are humiliated by being endlessly displayed for approval when marriages are being negotiated by families. The ritual of ladki dikhana [Formal courtship], with the inevitable rejections women (now even men) often undergo before being selected, does indeed make the whole process extremely stressful.
However, women do not really escape the pressures of displaying and parading themselves in cultures where they are expected to have self arranged marriages. Witness the amount of effort a young woman in western societies has to put in to look attractive enough to hook eligible young men. One gets the feeling they are on constant self display as opposed to the periodic displays in family arranged marriages. Western women have to diet to stay trim since it is not fashionable nowadays to be fat, …, try to get their complexion to glow, if not with real health, at least with a cosmetic blush. They must also learn how to be viewed as “attractive” and seductive to men, how to be a witty conversationalist as well as an ego booster – in short, to become the kind of appendage a man would feel proud to have around him. Needless to say, not all women manage to do all the above, though most drive themselves crazy trying. Western women have to compete hard with each other in order to hook a partner. And once having found him, they have to be alert to prevent other women from snatching him. So fierce is the pressure to keep off other grabbing females that in many cases if a woman is divorced or single she is unlikely to be invited over to a married friend’s house at a gathering of couples lest she try to grab someone else’s husband.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. What are some of the issues that women must deal with in self arranged marriages? Had you thought about these issues when reading excerpt #2? Would it alter your response to the questions after excerpt #2?
Excerpt #4 – Family Pressures
My impression is that it takes much more than two people to make a good marriage. Overebearing parents on either side can indeed make married life difficult for a young cocuple and often women have to put up with a great deal of maltreatment at the hands of their in-laws. But more solidly enduring and happy marriages are almost always those where the families on both sides genuinely join together to celebrate their coming together and invest a lot of effort and emotion in making the marriage work. Very few people have the emotional and other resources required to make a happy marriage all on their own. Two people locked up with each other in a nuclear family having to meet with varied expectations inevitably generate too much heat and soon tend to suffocate each other. The proximity of other family members takes a lot of the load off. They can act as a glue, especially during times of crisis. In cultures where marriage is considered an internal affair of the couple with no responsibility taken by families on either side for the continuation and well being of the marriage, breakdown in marriages is more frequent.
There is also a negative side. In communities where families consider it their responsibility to prevent divorce as far as possible women do very often get to be victims of vicious pressures against breaking out of abusive marriages. Among several communities in India a divorced woman is viewed with contempt and parents often force their daughters to keep their marriages going no matter what the cost. Consequently, many end up committing suicide or getting murdered because they are unable to walk out of abusive marriages. Many more have to learn to live a life of humiliation and even suffer routine beatings and other forms of torture. However, in such cultures, divorced men get to be viewed with some suspicion and are somewhat stigmatised…
In family arranged marriages, few parents are interested in marrying their young daughter to a divorced man, unless he is willing to marry a woman from a much poorer family (so that the family escapes having to pay dowry) or marry a divorced woman or widow. In India, relatively few men resort to divorce even when they are unhappy in marriage. The stigma attached to divorce for men, if not as great form women, is at least substantial enough to get them to try somewhat to control themselves. They know that they cannot get away with having a series of divorces, as they do in the West, and yet find a young, beautiful bride 30 years their junior.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. In India, how might the family impact a marriage? How does Indian culture perceive divorce? Is it acceptable or unacceptable? Explain your response.
Excerpt #5 – Safety Measures for Women
The outcome of marriage depends on how realistic the calculations have been. For instance, a family may arrange the marriage of their daughter with a man settled in the USA in the hope of providing better life opportunities to the daughter. But if they have not been responsible enough to inquire carefully into the family, personal and professional history of the man, they could end up seriously jeopardizing their daughter’s well being. He may have boasted of being a computer scientist but could turn out to be a low paid cab driver or a guard in New York. He could be living with or married to an American woman and take the Indian wife to be no more than a domestic servant or a camouflage to please his parents. He could in addition be a drunkard given to violent bouts of temper. His being so far away from India would isolate the young wife from all sources of support and thus make her far more vulnerable than if she were married in the same city as her parents.
***
The factors that decide the fate of women in marriage are:
· Whether the woman has independent means of survival. If she is absolutely dependent on her husband’s goodwill for survival, she is more likely to have to lead a submissive life than if she is economically self sufficient.
· Whether or not her husband is willing and equipped to take on the responsibility that goes with having a family.
· Whether or not a woman’s in-laws welcome her coming into the family and how eager they are to make it work.
· How well the two families get along with and respect each other.
· Whether or not there are social restraints through family and community control on men’s behavior. In societies where men can get away with beating wives or abandoning them in favour of younger women, women tend to live in insecurity. However, in communities where a man who treats his wife badly is looked down upon and finds it harder to find another wife because of social stigma, men are more likely to behave with a measure of responsibility.
· The ready availability of other women even after a man is known to have maltreated his wife tilts the balance against women. If men can easily find younger women as they grow older while women cannot as readily find marriage partners when they are older or divorced, the balance will inevitably tilt in favour of men irrespective of whether marriages in that culture are self arranged or parent arranged.
Whether or not her parents are willing to support her emotionally and financially if she is facing an abusive marriage. Most important of all is whether her parents are willing to give her the share due to her in their property and in the parental home. In communities where parents’ expectation concerning a daughter is that only her arthi (funeral pyre) should come out of her husband’s house, family pressure can prove really disastrous.
Undoubtedly, there are numerous situations whereby family elders do take an altogether unreasonable position; defiance of their tyranny then becomes inevitable, even desirable. Parents can often go wrong in their judgments. Parents must take into account their children’s best interests and preferences if they are to play a positive role.
IV. Personal Reflection
1. Choose one of the following and write a response.
· Write an article offering American perspectives on marriage. What advice would you give to young men and women looking to get married?
· Which type of marriage best provides for gender equality: self arranged marriages or family arranged marriages? What are the pros and cons of self arranged marriages and family arranged marriages? Which type would you most recommend and why?
V. Peer Reflection
1. Read one classmate’s response to the above questions and comment on their responses. (Do you agree or disagree? Why? Are there any problems with their analysis and logic? If so, what is the problem?)
I. Activating Prior Knowledge
The establishment of Indian independence in 1947 led to important legal reforms in gender relations. Voting rights were extended to women in the Constitution of 1950, which also outlawed discrimination by sex. Laws adopted somewhat later provided for divorce by mutual consent, banned polygamy (except among Indian Muslims), and established the right of women to have abortions.
The new laws benefitted upper-class, well-educated Hindu women who took advantage of increased opportunities for careers in politics, business, and education. However, despite the laws, career women in India were often unable to win acceptance as equals by their male colleagues and associates. Circumstances were far worse for the hundreds of millions of poor women, most of whom lived in India’s 560,000 rural villages. For these women, issues such as access to the most minimal level of education, obtaining adequate nutrition and basic health care (especially relating to childbirth), and opportunities for paid work of any kind remained major concerns.
In the 1970s, the continuing obstacles Indian women faced led to the emergence of a feminist movement. As their counterparts did in other countries, Indian feminists founded organizations and journals, conducted research on gender issues, lobbied governmental officials, became active in the labor movement, ran for public office, and organized protest demonstrations. The striking achievements in recent decades of women writers, such as Anita Desai, Gita Mehta, and Arundhati Roy, gave literary expression to the new feminist activism.
Indian feminists have had to face more difficult challenges compared to their counterparts in the West. The tradition of purdah (the physical exclusion of women) continues to be significant in India’s villages. In addition, owing to widespread poverty and the social pressure on families to provide dowries for their daughters, female infanticide in some rural regions is still a serious problem. Finally, there is widespread prejudice in India against widows, a lingering legacy of the once-significant practice of widow-suicide (sati).
II. Setting A Purpose for Reading
As you read about the lives of women in India, compare the traditional roles of women to more modern roles in India? How are these ideas being influenced by Western movements such as feminism? How do arranged marriages promote or inhibit the rights of women in India?
III. Reading the Text (Read, Re-Read, and Read Again)
Excerpt #1 – Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal – Spinning Wheel
In March 1922, Gandhiji (Mohandas Gandhi) was arrested and sentenced to six years imprisonment. He was released on January 12, 1924, before the expiration of his term. This earlier noncooperation movement was confined largely to men and was less extensive than the satyagraha movement of 1930-32. Women were expected to participate in processions and attend all Congress meetings, however, so with Mother and my two older sisters, Chandra and Janak, I used to join all such functions. I would like my readers to visualize the restricted life women led, even in a province so progressive as the Punjab. Women hardly ever ventured beyond the four walls of their homes, except to visit relatives or to attend a religious festival. My mother’s aunt always wore a shawl over her sari when she went visiting. I suppose that could be considered as a sort of Hindu burqa [garment that covers the head, face and body of the wearer] although her face was left uncovered. In that atmosphere, for the women to leave their homes and walk in a procession was a big step forward.
***
The main work of the women, as envisaged by the Congress, was to propogate the use of khadi. Women appealed to other women to discard foreign cloth. A number of songs were composed to bring this point home. Not all families could afford to throw away their clothes and buy a completely new wardrobe, but all the women had a couple of khadi saris, which they wore to all the meetings and processions. It was extremely difficult to forego buying the lovely materials available; in contrast, khadi was coarse and rough and not easily available. Our own textile industry had been completely destroyed by the British. It is said that the Indian muslin was so fine and soft that an entire sari could pass through a ring. All the foreign cloth collected by Congress would be consigned to the flames in a huge bonfire.
***
I have forgotten the name of that place, but it was a sort of miniature Jallianwala Bagh [the site of the 1919 Amritsar massacre], surrounded by tall houses and having only one entry. As the meeting progressed, the police walked in armed with metal-tipped lathis [long heavy sticks]. They declared the meeting illegal and requested that all women leave. The women understood that the men would be beaten once they left, so they refused to go. The excitement was intense and I was shouting slogans at the top of my voice. Those were the days when the British still remembered their chivalry. The police were not authorized to lathi-charge the men for fear of hitting the women. They tried persuasion and finally permitted the organizers to wind up the meeting and disperse. What a triumphant procession we made, parading through the streets of Lahore, celebrating our victory through nonviolence. Slogans were raised all along the route. I was only eleven years old and my excitement knew no bounds.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. Based on your reading of the passage, how did women impact the non-cooperation and non-violent protests against the British in India? How might the events and actions of the women in India from 1900-1950’s impact or alter the lives of women in India since that time?
Excerpt #2 – “Love and Marriage” from Manushi Magazine
Feminists, socialists and other radicals often project the system of arranged marriages as one of the key factors leading to women’s oppression in India. This view derives from the West, which recognizes two supposedly polar opposite forms of marriage – “love marriage” versus arranged marriage. “Love marriages” are assumed to be superior because they are supposedly based on romance, understanding, and mutual love – they are said to facilitate compatibility. In “love marriages” the persons concerned are supposed to have married out of idealistic considerations while arranged marriages are assumed to be based on materialistic considerations, where parents and family dominate and deny individual choice to the young people. Consequently, family arranged marriages are believed to be lackluster and loveless. It is assumed that in arranged marriages compatibility rarely exists because the couples are denied the opportunity to discover areas of common interests and base their life together on mutual understanding. Moving away from family arranged marriages towards love marriages is seen as an essential step towards building a better life for women. To it the social reformers add another favourite mantra – dowryless marriages as proof that money and status considerations play no role in determining the choice of one’s life partner. The two together – that is, a dowryless love marriage – [are] projected as the route to a happy married life.
Does experience bear this out? From what I have seen of them, “love marriages” compel me to conclude that most of them are not based on love and often end up being as big a bore or fiasco as many arranged marriages. Among the numerous cases I know I have found that often there is nothing more than a fleeting sexual attraction which does not last beyond the honeymoon period. And then the marriage is as loveless or even worse than a bad arranged marriage. Nor have I found any evidence that material considerations do not play as important a role in people’s choice when they decide to “fall in love” with someone with a view to matrimony…
***
Likewise, sons of senior bureaucrats, ambassadors, and top industrialists could have the choicest pick among the beauties and cuties of Miranda House. But a man whose father was a small shopkeeper in Kamla Nagar or a clerk in a government office stood no chance, no matter how bright or decent he might be. I witnessed several instances of my fellow students ditching a man they had been having an affair with for years as soon as someone from a wealthier background appeared on the scene. Often they would not even bother to hide the crassness of their calculations; a friend conveniently “fell out of love” with her boyfriend who owned a motorbike in favour of someone who had a car to take her out on dates.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. What are the arguments for and against arranged marriages? What are the arguments for and against love-based marriages? Based on the arguments presented, which type of marriage would you prefer? Explain your response.
Excerpt #3 – Self Arranged Marriages
Critics of the family arranged marriage system in India have rightly focused on how prospective brides are humiliated by being endlessly displayed for approval when marriages are being negotiated by families. The ritual of ladki dikhana [Formal courtship], with the inevitable rejections women (now even men) often undergo before being selected, does indeed make the whole process extremely stressful.
However, women do not really escape the pressures of displaying and parading themselves in cultures where they are expected to have self arranged marriages. Witness the amount of effort a young woman in western societies has to put in to look attractive enough to hook eligible young men. One gets the feeling they are on constant self display as opposed to the periodic displays in family arranged marriages. Western women have to diet to stay trim since it is not fashionable nowadays to be fat, …, try to get their complexion to glow, if not with real health, at least with a cosmetic blush. They must also learn how to be viewed as “attractive” and seductive to men, how to be a witty conversationalist as well as an ego booster – in short, to become the kind of appendage a man would feel proud to have around him. Needless to say, not all women manage to do all the above, though most drive themselves crazy trying. Western women have to compete hard with each other in order to hook a partner. And once having found him, they have to be alert to prevent other women from snatching him. So fierce is the pressure to keep off other grabbing females that in many cases if a woman is divorced or single she is unlikely to be invited over to a married friend’s house at a gathering of couples lest she try to grab someone else’s husband.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. What are some of the issues that women must deal with in self arranged marriages? Had you thought about these issues when reading excerpt #2? Would it alter your response to the questions after excerpt #2?
Excerpt #4 – Family Pressures
My impression is that it takes much more than two people to make a good marriage. Overebearing parents on either side can indeed make married life difficult for a young cocuple and often women have to put up with a great deal of maltreatment at the hands of their in-laws. But more solidly enduring and happy marriages are almost always those where the families on both sides genuinely join together to celebrate their coming together and invest a lot of effort and emotion in making the marriage work. Very few people have the emotional and other resources required to make a happy marriage all on their own. Two people locked up with each other in a nuclear family having to meet with varied expectations inevitably generate too much heat and soon tend to suffocate each other. The proximity of other family members takes a lot of the load off. They can act as a glue, especially during times of crisis. In cultures where marriage is considered an internal affair of the couple with no responsibility taken by families on either side for the continuation and well being of the marriage, breakdown in marriages is more frequent.
There is also a negative side. In communities where families consider it their responsibility to prevent divorce as far as possible women do very often get to be victims of vicious pressures against breaking out of abusive marriages. Among several communities in India a divorced woman is viewed with contempt and parents often force their daughters to keep their marriages going no matter what the cost. Consequently, many end up committing suicide or getting murdered because they are unable to walk out of abusive marriages. Many more have to learn to live a life of humiliation and even suffer routine beatings and other forms of torture. However, in such cultures, divorced men get to be viewed with some suspicion and are somewhat stigmatised…
In family arranged marriages, few parents are interested in marrying their young daughter to a divorced man, unless he is willing to marry a woman from a much poorer family (so that the family escapes having to pay dowry) or marry a divorced woman or widow. In India, relatively few men resort to divorce even when they are unhappy in marriage. The stigma attached to divorce for men, if not as great form women, is at least substantial enough to get them to try somewhat to control themselves. They know that they cannot get away with having a series of divorces, as they do in the West, and yet find a young, beautiful bride 30 years their junior.
Stop! Can you answer the following questions based on what you read? If not, then go back and re-read. In India, how might the family impact a marriage? How does Indian culture perceive divorce? Is it acceptable or unacceptable? Explain your response.
Excerpt #5 – Safety Measures for Women
The outcome of marriage depends on how realistic the calculations have been. For instance, a family may arrange the marriage of their daughter with a man settled in the USA in the hope of providing better life opportunities to the daughter. But if they have not been responsible enough to inquire carefully into the family, personal and professional history of the man, they could end up seriously jeopardizing their daughter’s well being. He may have boasted of being a computer scientist but could turn out to be a low paid cab driver or a guard in New York. He could be living with or married to an American woman and take the Indian wife to be no more than a domestic servant or a camouflage to please his parents. He could in addition be a drunkard given to violent bouts of temper. His being so far away from India would isolate the young wife from all sources of support and thus make her far more vulnerable than if she were married in the same city as her parents.
***
The factors that decide the fate of women in marriage are:
· Whether the woman has independent means of survival. If she is absolutely dependent on her husband’s goodwill for survival, she is more likely to have to lead a submissive life than if she is economically self sufficient.
· Whether or not her husband is willing and equipped to take on the responsibility that goes with having a family.
· Whether or not a woman’s in-laws welcome her coming into the family and how eager they are to make it work.
· How well the two families get along with and respect each other.
· Whether or not there are social restraints through family and community control on men’s behavior. In societies where men can get away with beating wives or abandoning them in favour of younger women, women tend to live in insecurity. However, in communities where a man who treats his wife badly is looked down upon and finds it harder to find another wife because of social stigma, men are more likely to behave with a measure of responsibility.
· The ready availability of other women even after a man is known to have maltreated his wife tilts the balance against women. If men can easily find younger women as they grow older while women cannot as readily find marriage partners when they are older or divorced, the balance will inevitably tilt in favour of men irrespective of whether marriages in that culture are self arranged or parent arranged.
Whether or not her parents are willing to support her emotionally and financially if she is facing an abusive marriage. Most important of all is whether her parents are willing to give her the share due to her in their property and in the parental home. In communities where parents’ expectation concerning a daughter is that only her arthi (funeral pyre) should come out of her husband’s house, family pressure can prove really disastrous.
Undoubtedly, there are numerous situations whereby family elders do take an altogether unreasonable position; defiance of their tyranny then becomes inevitable, even desirable. Parents can often go wrong in their judgments. Parents must take into account their children’s best interests and preferences if they are to play a positive role.
IV. Personal Reflection
1. Choose one of the following and write a response.
· Write an article offering American perspectives on marriage. What advice would you give to young men and women looking to get married?
· Which type of marriage best provides for gender equality: self arranged marriages or family arranged marriages? What are the pros and cons of self arranged marriages and family arranged marriages? Which type would you most recommend and why?
V. Peer Reflection
1. Read one classmate’s response to the above questions and comment on their responses. (Do you agree or disagree? Why? Are there any problems with their analysis and logic? If so, what is the problem?)
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