According to India's lunar national calendar, May is usually the country's peak wedding season. In late May of this year, in the Ettawa region of Uttar Pradesh, India, a bizarre wedding took place.
At this wedding, which was initially full of joy, the bride Surabi suddenly fainted and lost consciousness after exchanging garlands with the groom among the scattered flowers. Surabi's family called the doctor, and it wasn't long before the doctor announced that Surabi had died of cardiac arrest.
Wedding scene
The sudden death of the bride at the wedding scene was enough to shock and surprise those present. What is even more surprising is that the bride's bones are not cold, and after the man and the woman's family sit together and meet, they actually marry one of the bride's sisters to the groom, that is, her future brother-in-law.
According to local Media reports in India, Surabi's uncle expressed grief over the sudden death of his niece: "This is a difficult decision for our family. One daughter was lying in one room and the other daughter's wedding was taking place in another room. ”
The joy of the wedding has not yet ended, the grief of death has struck, and in the blink of an eye, it is the next wedding. According to Indian media reports, the funeral of the deceased bride was held only after the wedding of Surabi's sister and groom.
Surabi's sister (the girl in the circle) completes the wedding in place of her suddenly deceased sister
Marriage is a major event in life, from which we can also glimpse the origin and circulation of social culture. Behind this absurd wedding farce, it can be seen that the marriage culture in various parts of India still retains obvious traces of traditional colors. The most prominent feature of this "tradition" is the low status of Indian women. It is conceivable that for quite some time similar magical events will be staged in different corners of the Indian peninsula.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > pregnant women in a pool of blood</h1>
The young man outside the house, with an anxious face, awaits his pregnant wife to give birth. But when the sound of the baby crying came out, and he learned the news that it was a baby girl from the midwife, the expression of joy and excitement on his face instantly froze, and he coldly drowned his daughter with his own hands. This is a scene from the Indian film "The Country Without Women" staged in 2003.
Stills from the Indian film "The Country Without Women"
This scene is not an artistic exaggeration, but a "realistic" portrayal of Indian society. There is a long-standing consensus in all sectors of Indian society that manual intervention is the main cause of the serious imbalance in the sex ratio of the country's population. It is speculated that by 2030, India's population will exceed 1.5 billion. Statistics show that since the middle of the last century, the imbalance between men and women in India's population has become more pronounced: in 1961, india had about 941 women per 1,000 men; in 2001, it was only 933 women as opposed to 1,000 men; and in 2018, the figure reached a worrying 152:100 in some regions.
The imbalance in gender proportions has increased across the country, but even worse in some Indian states. Abortion for the purpose of sex selection is an important reason. In 2018, The Lancet published a report estimating that in 2015 alone, there were more than 15 million abortions in India, 78% of which were performed outside of healthcare facilities.
Abortion is legal in India, but most abortions are performed by civilian midwives with no medical experience. Sometimes, they would rub herbs on a woman's stomach or give her some plants
Unsafe abortion undoubtedly causes great or even fatal harm to the body of pregnant women in the country - relevant observations in the Indian medical community pointed out that unsafe abortion ranks third among the causes of death of pregnant women in India.
In the wider rural areas of India, more scientific modern contraceptives are far from fully available, let alone more rational fertility regimens. According to Lancet estimates, about half of the 48.1 million pregnant women in India in 2015 had unintended pregnancies.
The "scourge of childbearing" for Indian women is so serious that in addition to the lack of public health awareness, the constraints of traditional moral concepts and economic reasons, there are also factors with very Indian characteristics. Some local aid agencies in India pointed out that for single women around the age of 20 who have no stable financial resources, they are often humiliated or harassed by doctors and hospitals when they seek help in the hospital.
Single, impoverished young women are often humiliated and harassed by doctors and hospitals when they seek medical treatment
Fertility and sexual health topics in much of India remain synonymous with stigma and taboos. What is even more frightening is that due to the serious imbalance between the sex ratio between men and women, and the strong need for inheritance, human trafficking and violence against women have become a social disease in India.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="110" > from child marriage to early death</h1>
In 1957, the Indian government unified a variety of calendars across the country and officially established the official calendar of India. As mentioned above, May is the peak wedding season in India, mainly because after May, the so-called "auspicious wedding date" will generally decrease significantly in the following year. Such an auspicious wedding day often means a tragedy in life for many child brides.
Historical data show that as early as 1929, when India was still a British colony, the authorities passed legislation to explicitly prohibit child marriage. However, this law did not have any deterrent effect at first, and it was also full of resistance in the process of later implementation. As an old rule of Hinduism, until the 1970s, the system of child marriage was still prevalent in many Indian states.
In 1978, the Indian government set the marriageable age for men and women at 21 and 18 years old, but the practice of child marriage can still be found in rural India, even in the mountain tribes of some states, and the ancient tradition of children's group wedding ceremonies is maintained during the wedding season in May every year.
Some rural areas still retain the bad habit of children's mass weddings
According to the relevant Indian authorities, between 2005 and 2006, more than 44% of women married between the ages of 16 and 17, and 22.6% of women married before the age of 16, including 2.6% of child marriages before the age of 13. According to a REPORT BY UNICEF, more than a third of the world's "child brides" are from India, and in 2007 alone, nearly 25 million Indian women were married when they reached the age of 18.
According to the traditional Hindu canon, child marriage is a customary act of marriage that is favored and promoted. When a girl in her early teens arrives at her "husband's house", her fate is completely in the hands of her husband's family, because of premature birth, so the early death of child brides is more common.
Bilas, who lives in the northern Indian city of Gurgaon, is 28 years old. In his experiences and memories, child marriage is exactly what happens around him: "In the past, the tradition of child marriage in India was very popular in rural areas. My grandmother got married when she was an adult and was about 12 years old. ”
In child marriage, girls may be allowed to be rationed to men who are in their teens or even twenties
In many of India's vast rural areas, where the fruits of state-level economic development have yet to benefit, child marriage, which is relatively less expensive, has an incentive to continue in the eyes of parents who are eager to marry their daughters out. "In big cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai, the awareness of equality between men and women has been being promoted, and the social status of women is indeed slowly improving. In these big cities, women also have more job opportunities, so they can rely on themselves and no longer have to rely on their husbands. Bilas told look at the world.
At the same time, however, in many poor rural families in India, because there is no stable and independent economic resources, a very large number of rural women do not understand what "free love" is all their lives, and it is up to their parents to decide the age and object of marriage; after marriage, they can only be obeyed by their husbands, and cannot make any objections or suggestions.
Stills from the Indian film Blazing Hot
Bilas told Looking at the World, "There are not so many good job opportunities in rural areas, and there are even fewer positions available to women, and it can be said that 95% of rural women are housewives after marriage." If you want to buy some trinkets or anything, you have to ask your husband for money. In such a macho society, whether the husband is right or wrong, they basically just do it. ”
Researchers who have long followed Indian society have reported that in India, women in child marriage are more likely to have more than three births, have less than two years apart from each other, multiple unintended pregnancies, terminate pregnancies and have a higher likelihood of sterilization.
In India, it is not uncommon for mothers to have multiple children at a young age
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="111" > "happy" Indian male? </h1>
Bilas also tells the story of India's marriage-related traditions: "In the former Indian countryside, there was a burial custom that was more excessive than child marriage. In some states, after the husband dies and is cremated, his wife is also cremated, according to the religious interpretation, this is the hope that the villagers hope that the couple can continue to reunite in heaven. Some places do not use their wives to accompany the funeral, but they are required to eat vegetarian for life after the death of their husbands, and they can only wear white clothes for a lifetime, and they can no longer get married, indicating that the happiness and happiness in their lives have disappeared with the departure of their husbands. ”
Although in rural areas, these horrific marriage customs are gradually being outlawed by the Indian government, Bilas believes that most rural Women in India are still a long way from mastering the autonomy of marriage.
Somewhat similar to the wedding farce in the Ettawa area, Bilas used the encounter of a female friend next to her as an example, saying that after the woman was engaged to the man, her fiancé suddenly repented and canceled the marriage contract on the grounds that she "did not want to marry this woman". However, in order to follow the relevant customs, the woman's family believes that if the daughter in the family cannot get married smoothly after the engagement, she must immediately find another man to complete the marriage, so she hastily arranged a new marriage partner and soon held a wedding.
Stills from the Indian film Monsoon Wedding
It is not difficult to see that the real example given by Bilas is only less tragic than the wedding farce, and the tragedy of The female friend of Bilas who cannot decide the fate of her marriage is still so eye-catching. What is even more striking is the social traditions and customs behind the tragedy of Indian women. Behind these traditions and customs is the "presence" of Indian men.
From the perspective of traditional Hindu culture, the vast majority of Indian families believe that the men in the family shoulder the heavy responsibility of passing on the generations, and even feel that the family without sons is mutilated and incomplete. Proceeding from the Hindu practice of pride in cremation, in the countryside, this is also firmly bound to the idea of male superiority over female inferiority: if there is no son to light a pyre for him after death, the soul of the deceased cannot ascend to heaven.
On the other hand, the inheritance of the dowry system in modern Indian society has also affected the improvement of women's status. Dowry disputes often raise serious social problems, forcing the Indian government to introduce the Anti-Dowry Act in the 1960s. But until now, the dowry system has not really been abolished in India, on the contrary, the extravagant weddings of many Indian rich people are often on the news of various media around the world.
Wedding dowry for wealthy Indian families
Almost in contrast to east Asian customs, in India, when a woman marries, the woman's family is given a richer dowry than the man's. With the improvement of living standards, the dowry of traditional weddings in India has also been upgraded from cattle, jewelry and some furniture in the past to more direct cash, and even more high-end cars and villas.
This means that if a family gives birth to a boy, it is like laying a golden egg, because it is possible to receive a large dowry in the future. If you give birth to a girl, it is basically equivalent to debt. Moreover, the less dowry a woman brings when she marries, the more humble her position in her husband's family. Domestic violence against women after marriage by men because they are dissatisfied with the woman's dowry occurs from time to time in Indian society.
"The dowry that women want to give to men is getting better and better, color TVs, furniture, refrigerators, washing machines, I have seen these used as dowries, and of course, essential gold jewelry." Many foreigners have heard about it and told me that they think Indian men are very happy. Bilas said these words with sarcasm.
Author | Reporter Wu Yangyu
Edit | Reimer [email protected]
Typography | Plum fish
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