These Hindu Wedding Customs Are Designed To Put Women Down?

Hindu Wedding Customs: No matter how much we try to justify, the institution of marriage in India has mostly served the interest of men rather than being an equal partnership between two individuals.

Women are expected to take care of the household, take care of the children alone, attend to the husband's family and basically be the sole responsible person for all things domestic. The husband is expected to go out, earn a living and financially support his family.

The ideology that is deep-rooted in the minds of people has been passed down through generations. Even though the modernisation and emancipation of women in society have helped people reject such notions but we still have a long way to go. What really is surprising how modern women who are financially independent and unwilling to become submissive partner are gladly following some very problematic and sexist wedding rituals in the name of celebrations. How will be able to establish marriages as a partnership between two equal individuals if we keep following the same regressive wedding customs?

In the conventional Hindu wedding ceremonies of heterosexual couples, a bride is expected to touch her groom's feet, she is handed over by her parents to the groom as a commodity during Kanyadaan and is sent away to a man's house and called paraya after the bidaai ceremony. How is that progressive and why are we still following such customs in 2021?

Hindu Wedding Customs: Some Bizarre practices passed as "playful rituals"

In the Darbhanga, Madhubani and neighbouring regions of Bihar, there is a community called Maithil Brahmins. Like most practising Hindus, the community has its own share of problematic customs and rituals they follow at their weddings. When a Mathil Brahmin groom stays at his bride's house for at least four days after the wedding, he is supposed to guard a clay pot from his sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law.

The groom makes sure that the pot is covered all the time and the in-laws try to steal the cover. The groom chases them and brings back the cover. This ritual called "Dhakan Chori" holds a different meaning for different families. As a kid who loved the catch and run act of the ritual, I was shocked and appalled to know that the clay represents the groom's sister's modesty. So basically, the in-laws try to violate the groom's sister's modesty for fun?

Here are some other sexist Hindu wedding customs: 

• Kaashi Yatra: Groom pretends to leave the wedding venue and the bride's father begs him to come back and marry the bride.
• Dowry System: An illegal custom where the groom's family demands money, automobile, jewellery and other items from the bride's family.
• Women declared 'Manglik' made to marry a tree before a man because she might bring death to her would-be-husband otherwise?
• Bride washing groom's feet because the pati (husband) is treated as parmeshwar ( God).

How can we break free from these?

As women get to take more space in our societies and see through the veiled patriarchy, more and more weddings are taking without such problematic Hindu wedding customs. Bollywood actor Dia Mirza's wedding is a good example. She and her husband who got married in February this year didn't go through with Kanyadaan or Bidaai. Dia Mirza said, "Change begins with a choice, isn't it?"

Many couples are also going for court marriages to do away with any and every wedding custom. This has helped couples manoeuvre inter-caste, inter-faith and same-sex wedding much easily. After all, the point of marriage is togetherness.

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