Do the Indian laws meant to protect women’s rights actually ‘baby’ women? Do you think that women should not be able to stop a husband from divorcing them if he does not want to stay married to them? If one of the parties wants a divorce, it should be granted…?
Some points to consider.
1. Many Indian families marry their sons, with massive dowries. Either before, or soon after a child is born (specially if it is a girl child) they decide they want a new daughter in law with more dowry. This is common.
Why don’t women gladly divorce such men? Basically because Indian women are raised to see Getting Married and Staying Married as their ultimate goal in life.
They may have other reasons too.
A 28 year old woman’s daughter had some medical problems and developmental delays. She felt she was not going to be able to care for her without the father’s support. The father loved the child, but his mother felt the daughter in law was not respectful enough. The man seemed undecided, loved the child, but seemed to fear his mother too. Now if it was easy for the man to divorce her, his family would have ensured that does happen.
In many cases like this, women do not think they benefit from being divorced, and the husbands swing between loyalty to their birth families and wanting to stay married.
In the past such people could get the son married again, no legal divorce was needed. (Who does it look like is being babied here?) This still happens, though it’s not common in middle class families.
I know of a driver whose parents forced him to marry a woman they really liked, but he left his village with a woman he liked and lives in Ghaziabad now. The legal wife takes care of the parents and has one child. She’s grateful to have a roof over her head, she has no idea that she can’t be driven out of her marital home until she signs the divorce papers.
In another case my maid from Hubli left her husband and came to live, close to her mother, in Pune when she found out that he already had a wife and a child. The husband came after some months, was furious and beat her infront of her family, (who supported him). They didn’t want her responsibility and the stigma of a separated daughter, although she was not dependent on them. No amount of convincing from many of her employers worked, she went. She doesn’t understand that her semi-forced unhappy marriage is not even legal. Are they social equals?
There are thousands of cases like this. The wives have no idea that they have any rights at all.
Why doesn’t this work as easily in middle class families anymore? What changed? The Indian middle class acknowledges that now a wife’s signature is needed for divorce before a second wife can be brought in.
Can this be seen as babying Indian women?
2. In many cases the son has been persuaded to marry the woman in the hope that she would change him into the kind of person his family wants him to be, one example, is Smartu and Sweety’s case. Taking away a woman’s right to have a say in divorce cases would be welcomed by such families. “She fails to change/improve him, divorce her, try another woman.“
Question: Who is being babied here?
3. Parents also attempt to break ‘love marriages’. They often succeed, because many believe that in India a woman marries not a man but an entire family. (This applies only to women, men marry a woman (or more) not her family.)
4. Sometimes married men want a legal divorce to marry another woman. They can’t do that until the first wife is divorced. All this is new to the Indian society – in the past, even the middle class women did not have the power to stop a married man from marrying a second time.
5. Most Indian women, even today, are brought up to be dependent and devoted wives, quite along the lines of Mr Responsible Father, and they are blamed and held responsible for not being able to save their marriages. Until these attitudes change, I wonder if divorce laws, where one party wanting divorce is enough for divorce to be granted, might take us back to the times when women had no control over getting married and being ‘sent back’ or being legally divorced?
What kind of laws could help women in such cases?
Laws that ensure that they can not be married and divorced without having a say in both. This is very difficult for Indian families and society to accept. Also laws that ensure they have child custody and means to raise the children (child support), and, sometimes, they should have a chance to try to ‘save their marriages’ if that is what they feel they need to do.
Financial independence is difficult to achieve so long as child care, house work, spouse’s career and elder care etc are seen as women’s jobs. Social stigma, family’s disapproval, risk of losing children’s custody (fathers are natural guardians) make it still tougher.
Can men and women stay unequal in every way, but have exact same (not equal) laws governing them?
Do divorce and marriage affect Indian men and women in the same way? How does one change how divorce impacts women?
I believe that if one partner wants a divorce it should be granted. There is no point in living in a relationship where one wants out.
If women are brought up with the notion that marriage is be all and end all of existence, then THAT is where the change should come. We should concentrate on bringing up our children to be self reliant, able to take care of themselves (emotionally, financially) rather than force someone else to care for them. If the parents concentrated on that, gave what they have to their daughters instead of paying another family in cash and kind to take their daughters of their hands, it would be better.
//”Can men and women stay unequal in every way, but have exact same (not equal) laws governing them?”//
No.
But equal laws will ultimately make women stronger.
I agree Shail with your last line. Eventually it will.
Do you think this could make women insecure and hence more willing to compromise and bear abuse in marriages? Those women who are living with oppressive in laws, under pressure to produce male children, or those who are made to feel they are not good looking enough, not super-women enough – how would it affect them to have the sword of divorce hanging on their heads?
Why do you think women would WANT to continue living with oppressive in-laws, with pressure to produce male children?
Shail often because they have nowhere else to go to. Parents not willing to ‘take them back’, no independence and the idea that staying is the only option.
For example, I know of three women in dead-marriages, two of them serving the husband’s parents (who don’t care for them although it was an arranged marriage), husbands in relationship with other women and the children aware of everything. In one case there is some violence too (she says a rare slap), and in each case, there are threats of throwing them out.
One of them said she was glad he could not ‘throw her out’ and that was her security – that she was his legally wedded wife. There is every chance that divorce would have been a favour to her, but the man, I don’t think had any intentions of divorcing her, he just used it like a threat to keep her from protesting too much.
This then lays bare the crux of the problem – long term vs short term. My view is that the long term solution is to make the laws equal. Laws come first – society changes afterwards. Some people think that society has to change first and only then the laws should follow.
But laws tell people what should be. They tell the next generation what’s right and what’s wrong. Just look at the court’s decriminalizing homosexuality. the law leads society. We didn’t wait until “society was ready” to accept gays before we gave the equal rights.
A short term solution would be for the law to treat the woman as a victim. If you do that, it’ll take much longer for things to change since now it’s official. Like reservations. Now that we have reservations on paper, caste can never disappear. It’s going to remain a permanent fixture forever and ever.
Agree. But there is anyway nothing wrong with a No fault divorce if the woman has some control over the outcome. I am sure anybody would only be against a system that takes away whatever little powers women have got after centuries of having no say in decisions concerning themselves.
Laws do lead, but they have not yet started reaching a majority of women, who have no idea they are equal in the eyes of the law.
That’s true. Laws haven’t reached most women yet. So awareness campaigns by the government can help I feel. Cartoons showing a woman doesn’t have to “put up” with domestic violence etc.
Interestingly, the laws granting equal status to women haven’t reached a lot of Indian men!
BJP,
Laws should be legislated depending on the current situation of the society and should be amended or reformed as situation changes.Some Laws of a liberal democratic society is aimed at protecting the oppressed. Such laws do not increase oppression. Reservations are for protecting a section of the society and not for eliminating caste altogether. Similarly woman-friendly laws are not meant for eliminating patriarchy but for giving some relief/protection for women from oppressive patriarchal custom. It will never hinder women emancipation.
Laws should not be aimed at some future Utopian society,but at the current social scenario.
I feel laws should attempt to create the best society possible. And I don’t think the best society is one where women are portrayed as having no choice to be independent.
The solution is the empowerment of women. To make them aware of their equal rights. This generation might not internalize that fully, but successive ones will. And that I feel is the only solution.
With respect to reservation, the elimination of caste is the ultimate long term goal isn’t it? We don’t want caste equality. We want no caste! By cementing caste differences is stone, we’re doomed to forever have the curse of caste as part of our society.
Giving people equal rights is all the law can (and should) do. It should also encourage people to use those rights and make them aware of what they can do. Women have to learn to use their rights to take control of their lives. No one – not even the law can do that for them and give them the respect that comes with empowerment.
As Morpheus said in The Matrix “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
The number of questions this post raises clearly illustrates the blatant inequalities with which women have to live. To answer them I need to re read and re read your post and think about it long and hard.
Just a thought:
I recently read an article talking about measures taken to achieve gender equality in the professional sphere in Norway. They have 40% women in companies and 50% in the Parliament. According to the Minister for gender equality laws when implemented (in this case affirmative action through quota) pave the way for the society’s mind set to change and I agree. India’s prerogative should be awareness and enforcement of laws, the mind set will change as you point out through your examples – that’s why the middle class families can no longer abuse ( they instead mentally and physically torture the poor woman which is not much better) because they are aware of the laws.
I used to work on a project that is called Family Development which used to do this type of counselling – telling people about their rights in urban poor settlements. It is amazing the difference awareness about one’s rights makes.
Interesting thoughts to ponder upon. Thank you
Prathm, do you think making it easy for women to be divorced, whether or not they want to be divorced, will help in creating a better, more just society.
There can be two types of divorce one is consensual where both parties agree and legally there is no need for a trial. Their divorce has to approved by a magistrate.
The other is if one party wants a divorce and the other is refusing, then they need to go for trial and prove their reasons for wanting divorce – I know that trials could take a hundred years in India. That’s what needs to change, special marriage courts could deal with such cases (does that exist in India?) and when these cases are dealt with sensitively by the law, women will feel less shame at going to courts with accusations of physical or mental abuse against their in laws or husbands.
I do think that state and law dealings with such type of cases helps change the societal norms.
I don’t think one party asking for divorce should be sufficient – in India this would be very women unfriendly for the most part. Did I answer your question?
me – Yes, you did Prathm and I agree with you.
I also feel that the right to not be ‘divorced/sent back home/thrown out/deserted/be left’ etc is a new right for Indian women, and even today a lot of Indian women are NOT aware that they have a say in who they marry and how and when they can be divorced.
An interesting article on a related subject – rapist marries victim and abandons her- it is not exactly something to start your day with beware.
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/married-to-my-rapist
Because marriage is only about virginity and honor, and no marriage, no life.
@bhagwad –
In the first case, the man just left!! That’s exactly what this blog post is about.
I think we also have desertion laws in India – where if one partner just leaves, they have to pay a heavy price and/or give up rights to the home in which they used to stay…something like that, not sure.
But we have laws to prevent that too…Why weren’t they made use of?
Because women (and men who do walk out) are not aware that it’s wrong for a man to leave his wife without legal divorce. The same man comes back (maybe in a few months or years) and beats her if she hasn’t kept the house clean etc and she is grateful he needed her. One woman realised her husband liked another woman as soon as she got married and then spent years trying to win him over , paying for his expenses (drinking mainly) but he finally left her and went to the woman he wanted to marry. She raised the kids alone – and everybody was glad she had the kids to live for. Nobody thought she should marry again (it’s unimaginable, even blasphemous).
This is not a rare or odd case.
Gud post.
Democratic liberal Societies legislate special laws to protect the interests of oppressed sections. Such laws are necessary for the stability and prosperity of the society. In India thus we have laws protecting Women, lower castes, religious and linguistic minorities and the poor etc. Only when we realize that certain sections of the Society is not allowed to play in a level playing field that we can understand the importance of such laws.
I agree. What about divorce laws? Do you think making it easier for women to be divorced (whether or not they want a divorce) will encourage Indian parents to make their daughters depend less on getting married for security?
I don’t believe that men and women are social equals in India unless you’re in certain, very selective pockets of society. My fiance’s parents are divorced and are both happily married to different people. A heck of a lot of it has to do with how much confidence a woman has. My future MIL refused to believe that she should bear the stigma of being a ‘divorced’ woman, succeeded well in her career, and married someone she loved in her 40s. She didn’t let Indian society bring her down. She had an education and she had the courage to face society in spite of having to support two children.
So when you give an example like Smartu and Sweety, I’m less than inclined to agree with the sentiment that it’s all society’s fault or Smartu and his family’s fault. What about Sweety’s parents who raised her to be an extremely immature and emotionally unstable adult? She had an education, she had the means of supporting herself but she chose to kill herself instead.
While I don’t think Indian society is equal for men and women, I do believe that education levels the playing field a bit. So it’s tricky to say that women always get the bad end of the deal in a divorce that’s only contested by one party.
Kay I feel in the end, everybody is better off and much happier being divorced from someone who does not wan not stay married to them. And most women do realise this after while and lead full lives too.
My concern is for the kind of cases I have given examples of, or of easy divorce laws being used to make women give in to demands by husbands and in laws.
I totally agree that this law might have terrible consequences for uneducated women / women with no means of supporting themselves. However, in someone like Sweety’s case, I think it may have been beneficial. Perhaps she would have realized that she was completely capable of supporting herself, that she was privileged to have an education in a country in which there are hundreds of millions of starving poor people who have no access to the education she had access to, and maybe she would have grown up and realized that life goes on.
Kay 75% or more Indians are from the backgrounds where such a law will do terrible harm. A good part of the rest would also suffer – because a lot more needs to change before such a law can be implemented in India.
IHM, I feel that in the present state of severely patriarchal Indian society,Indian
Women should not be forced to divorce if they do not want it.
It is not easier divorce laws but changing economic relations that make
Indian women more independent.
Also I feel that when u make it easier for men to divorce the unequality in the relationship will only widen.
Women will become more oppressed
I do agree with it if one wants a divorce it shud be given. How can it be expected for.the two to make up after this. It wont work.
I know of the in-equalitys I guess they will remain till the mentality changes. Till each is treated as human and not man woman.
//”One of them said she was glad he could not ‘throw her out’ and that was her security – that she was his legally wedded wife”//
Perhaps if she had not been brainwashed into believing that, she would have got out. learnt tolive independently and saved herself.
How is she any better off in this relationship? Being threatened and taking care of people who don’t care for her and husband in another relationship. Is it the financial security that you mean?
I agree Shail. But she has known no other life. I hope she does walk out and make a life for herself. I would go out of my way to convince her that she should – but do I think her in laws should be able to use the threat of divorce to further subjugate her? I don’t think that is going to do her any good. Knowing divorce is not possible without her signature is reassuring for her. I feel women should have some say in both, their marriages and their divorces.
I have seen similar threats of divorce in one more case, here too the much younger woman said the husband should not think he can get a new wife every year.
Yes, Divorce should be granted when anyone of the couple wants out. But alimony should be considered for women who are not independent. If a marriage is not working out, there’s no point in staying together. There will be many direct and indirect verbal assaults, if not physical ones that will make life hell. If women were as independent (in all ways) as men, and the stigma of separation were removed, things will be much better for them.
The whole point being that we see many men walk out of divorces to live if not the same but a better life. They got out of a marriage that did not work for them, got a partner better suited for their need(whatever they may be) that is a better life for them. However the women were ostracized being said that they were not upto the mark, it was their fault and social customs and blah blah. In many cases these were women who did not have a steady source of income and had to support themselves (and kids sometimes) . on top of that the fact that they were ostracised. until we make the two genders equally accountable, equally acceptable, equally independent, and remove the notion that a married life is the only goal of life things will not change.
Do you really think there will ever come a time when a government in Indi decides to say “I think lower castes are ok now – let’s remove reservations?” If anything, reservations have increased. And mark my words – it will never decrease.
Saying that “We will make divorce easy when women are empowered” is a death sentence to any hope of equality. Because there will never come a concrete time when someone will say “Enough – now’s the time.”
We like to talk about “advanced” societies like the US. But race inequality is there even in those countries! If we in India reach where the US is in 50 years, someone will still say that lower castes are not “fully” equal yet. Once a law like that comes into being, it is never removed.
Remember that the Indian constitution wanted the reservations policy to be removed after 50 years or so. It made a mistake in not specifying an exact time – because by leaving it open, it ensured it will never be removed.
I will be ok if someone said “Let us measure the performance of lower castes using xyz parameters. If it goes above a certain number, we can remove reservations. And that measurement will take place once every five years.”
In short, I’m ok with reservations if they have specific goals to measure their effectiveness and to decide when they are to be removed. But to my knowledge, no such “limit” is ever set.
Similarly, if you hold off on making the right laws on divorce “until women are empowered,” you’re screwed forever.
So again we have short term vs long term. You choose.
I can so identify with Case Number 3 since I actually had to face it. Luckily (for me), parents did not succeed and we are now one big happy family. My family was (and still is) devastated and my Mother (even now, after a baby being born) tries to needle me and hurt me for my choice of life-partner… all this inspite of the fact that he is a very caring and wonderful husband and father…just that he belongs to a different community from us. Mom never does this when my Dad or my husband is around, but when she gets me alone, she tries to rub it in. So much so that, I now try not to be alone with her.
All this because I got married to a wonderful person from a different community.
More about this on my blog
me – I agree. Let me hop over right now.
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Mine is a love marriage and if given a choice some of the relatives on my in laws side can live without me more happily. Divorce is still taboo in India, a friend of mine is in an abusive relationship and is getting divorced now, but her parents wished otherwise. They love their social obligations more than their daughter’s peace of mind.
A very well written article, though provoking and well, my sympathies with maids, but I doubt middle class has changed completely. In my opinion, based on experiences, not even 20% has changed!
Cheers
Chintan
I think I should add at this point that “no fault” divorce doesn’t mean that a divorce can be forced on an unwilling party! Both parties still have to agree that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”
If one of the parties thinks the marriage is “irretrievably broken” and the other does not, the judge looks at the circumstances, listens to both and makes a transparent determination based on the facts as to whether it’s broken down or not.
Thought I should point this out because a large part of your post addresses the issue of a divorce being granted when one of the parties doesn’t want it. That’s actually a non issue…
It is. That’s all I thought was unjust. A misunderstanding.
I read this on Wikipedia,
I do not see why Divorce is treated as such a big issue by courts – From a legal point of view its mainly like a contract one party wants out – at best they should only pass judgement on settlement issues.
Never been married but I think there a couple have to wait for X number of days to get their Marriage registered. I guess at best they can ask the couple to wait X number of days to get divorce registered. Maybe I am being too clinical about a very messy affair but then I am speaking about law and legality.
I am all for equality of laws and granting of divorce when one party demands it. And here is why:
In India, most of the women opt to stay in abusive marriages because of the financial and social security it provides. Many a times, they do not even want to acquire any skills that will make them independent. Sure, the initial wave of such divorces will have an unfavorable effect on women, but in the long term, it will make them realize that they alone are responsible for their well being. Women will start refusing to “sacrifice” their careers after marriage or stop their studies mid way to get married because they don’t know if they will need it in the future. Parents will begin to equip their daughters with life skills. And eventually equality will be achieved,
Our main concern should be to make sure that all women from all walks of life are educated about their rights.
Very true clueless. For me, it’s about a trade off between a short term stop gap solution which doesn’t really work properly, and a long term change which makes people responsible for their own lives through empowerment and awareness.
Bhagwad you said No Fault divorce is not forcing divorce on an unwilling partner? Then why is it even an issue?
It’s an issue because we don’t have a no fault divorce system in India and we should!
Completely agree with you Bhagwad. I went to hell and back to secure divorce from my ex-husband.
Incompatibity and “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” are not yet grounds for divorce in India.
He finally agreed to a divorce by mutual consent after much pleading and threatening on my part.
At the very end, I was compelled to threaten him with 498 A because he refused to a divorce by mutual consent initially.
His grand plan was to simply remarry after a suitable amount of time had elapsed and hide his previous marriage from his future wife.
He therefore saw no need to legally divorce and did not wish to be saddled with the stigma of divorce when he could just hide a past marriage.
No-fault divorce laws would have greatly helped in those circumstances.
We were finally divorced earlier this year, 3.5 years after we first separated.
Initially, I tried filing for an ex-parte divorce under section 12, but he would turn up for one hearing and abscond for the others.
The judge would then set a date several months away and back I went to square one.
Due to the absence of no-fault laws, divorce in India can be a nasty and needlessly expensive and time-consuming process.
@Clueless @Bhagwad – In many backward countries, and in most parts of rural India, “granting of divorce when one party demands it” has been commonly practiced, although not legal, nobody really cares. Generally the man wants a divorce and simply leaves the woman. It has not helped in empowering women. It has encouraged women to work and raise their children, but it has not empowered them in any way. It has only made them insecure and desperate to please. I have mentioned some such cases in this post, and there are thousands more such cases.
The right to have a say in their divorce is a hard earned right for women (though it has only reached the middle classes yet, and the difference in attitudes is visible ). It has made men and their families take marriages more seriously then they had done for centuries, when women could be married and ‘left’ without any social stigma/legal action.
I feel that the reason for opposition to protective laws for the oppressed classes coming from well meaning liberal individuals is incomplete understanding of the institutions of patriarchy/feudalism.
Many who commented here seems to have the belief that an individual can change the system. They believe that it is the lack of initiative from an individual woman that prevent women empowerment .Is it so?
When an individual tries to break out of the system most often she fails because Patriarchy is very strong. Success is the exception not the rule. For each successful woman who fought patriarchal oppression successfully there are thousands who have failed.
That’s why protective laws are important to help empowerment of women. How it will hinder women’s emancipation? Any data/studies? On the contrary there are a large volume of data which shows protective laws helped to weaken patriarchy.
While I do not disagree with what you have said, I also firmly believe that it is up to each individual to exercise their rights as best as they can, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
I could have bowed down to social and parental pressure and stayed in a marriage that I felt was unequal and exploitative.
Well-meaning aunties and uncles would have heartily approved of my heroic attempts to preserve a marriage that was causing me so much unhappiness and suffering.
Others would have pointed at me and said, “There goes the epitome of Indian womanhood. She has sacrificed so much, compromised so much for her marriage and her in-laws.”
But I chose to leave because I believed in different notions of happiness, fulfillment and responsibility.
I left knowing that blame would be heaped upon me and I would pretty much become a persona non-grata in the eyes of many.
The point I am trying to make is that each of us is ultimately responsible for shaping our own lives, based on what we believe in and desire for.
No amount of legislation and social reform will empower a woman if the basic desire to take personal responsibilty is missing in her.
Many Indian women are socialised to passively accept their lot in life.
They do not see themselves as free individuals endowed with agency and the ability to chart their own course.
Unless Indian women learn to take responsibility for their own well-being and their own lives, they will continue to be passive victims rather than empowered agents of change.
I always live by Bapuji’s words: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Laws that ensure that they can not be married without having a say ? You expect the girl to move to court against her own parents? Its the parents who should change.
As I was researching US law for my work, I came across an interesting fact. “Emotional Abuse” (without physical violence) is a crime in the US only when the victims are children, elderly people (over 65) and similarly mentally handicapped persons.
The assumption is that regular adults have the mental defenses to protect their mind and can take necessary steps to stop it. Would you say this is true/not true for Indian women? Do we assume that they don’t have the mental capability to protect themselves from emotional abuse and treat them as “half adults?”
Again, this is true only when there’s no physical violence, threats, intimidation, financial theft etc. Just “mental cruelty” – like keeping a mistress for example. The woman is free to do whatever she wishes and no one can actually force her to do otherwise.