Dear Society Sindoor Is Just Your Obsession, Not My Necessity

The necessity of sindoor: The moment you catch sight of a lady wearing bright vermilion in the parting of her hair, the words that resonate in your minds are “married”, “owned” or “taken”. Or otherwise, if you belong to a more open-minded and liberal circle, it would just symbolise a medium of expression, the expression being that “I am married and it is my choice to express it through sindoor.” Why is sindoor a necessity?

But how often is latter the case? In our society isn't the marriage of a woman is marked by the changes and comprises she acquires in her life?

Doesn’t sindoor in our society embody a necessity rather than a choice? And being a necessity, is the bright red colour of sindoor a metaphor for blood that oozes out of the oppression of women? Does the necessity of sindoor denote patriarchal ideal clamping women down?

Prevalence of sindoor culture today

From daily soaps, fashion trends to real lives, sindoor has been a major part of a woman’s life. It will be superficial to say that the value of sindoor resides in the “holy” circles of marriage mandaps only. Because even a small girl knows what sindoor means for a woman- wearing it is a sign of prosperity and losing it (or being spilt mistakenly) a symbolic death. Some might argue that these are archaic ideas that no longer exist. But the prevalence of sindoor wrapped in orthodox beliefs is marked by the fact that even today, society points out married women who do not choose to wear sindoor in public or private domains.

Remember when Anushka Sharma’s sindoor-less photo was edited by adding a red mark near the parting of her hair? Remember when Guwahati High court deigned the refusal of a woman to wear sindoor and shakha as a refusal to accept marriage in Hindu law? And now in West Bengal a woman's forehead was forcibly smeared with sindoor by the hands of her dead boyfriend just because she couldn't save him from dying by suicide? Clearly, the indoor culture doesn't entirely include the women's freedom to make a choice. 

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Sindoor necessary only for women?

These instances are just more than enough to show how the prevalence of the necessity of sindoor breathes within us. But what is the significance of sindoor? How does it change a woman’s life? And why doesn’t it impact a man’s life? To be precise, sindoor, like bichhia (toe ring), is a symbolic declaration that a woman has been married to a man and now resides with her in-laws.

And the absence of it is the lack of security and happiness that marriage is supposed to embody for women. But the very fact that there is no such “symbol of marriage or happiness” that men are supposed to wear raises the question of the validity of sindoor.

Isn’t it sexist enough that a woman is supposed to wear sindoor, mangalsutra and toe rings to manifest her marital status but men follow no such rules? What does this difference intend if not a major difference in the lives of a man and a woman after marriage? That the lifestyles, choices and agency of a woman after marriage is partly decided by her status of being married while for men all of these remain the same?

A woman in our society is often referred through gross terms like khuli tijori, maal, and whatnot. These words connote that women are equivalent to things that can be used, robbed and thrown. Patriarchy even offers a solution to get rid of this unfair life which is to get married and wear sindoor. Hence sindoor becomes a symbolic lock of the "treasure" that women embody as per the male gaze and can no longer be used, robbed or thrown by men other than her husband.

Before you criticise me for being anti-Hindu, against traditions or values, ask yourself, why is sindoor important for women alone? Why don’t men too wear any of the ornaments/sindoor if they only suggested the idea of being married? Aren’t men married as much as women are? Or does marriage mean different things for men and women?

Sindoor a "stamp" in marriage

This brings me to the last part of my argument that ">marriage indeed means different things for men and women. For men, it’s about bringing home a bride who will serve his parents and if only they permit, goes out to work, exercises her choices and agency. But for women, marriage is ownership. Marriage is a medium to secure herself financially and socially in return for sacrifices, loss of self-respect and minimum expectations.

In the times when the dowry system still prevails, brides are chosen based on their colour, caste and dowry amount, sindoor is a stamp of a contract that marriage ultimately reduces into. And the stamp is on women because she is the one who is being measured in terms of gold and confined and wasted because of her gender.

Sindoor can be sacred, but first a choice

In this, I don’t intend to hurt the sentiments of women who believe in the sacredness of the sindoor. It is your choice, dear women, to wear or not sindoor, mangalsutra or anything that descends from our culture. But remember that the sacredness of the sindoor doesn’t transport to the marriage itself.

Even if the sindoor is sacred, it does not mean marriage is sacred too that demands devotion even after irreparable cracks; that divorce would mean going against the will of God. Even if sindoor is sacred, it is not a statement on the longevity of marriage, of husband or the wife. Even if sindoor is scared, it is just a medium of expression that you chose to adorn yourself with and to define what it signifies. Because just why sindoor should mean happiness through marriage alone? And not only for women but men too because just recently, a woman tied mangalsutra to her husband, changing the tradition and giving us new hope. 

Views expressed are author's own