For women now, marriage is not the ultimate thing

This year, the civil services examination results had three women taking the top three spots. In a society still grappling with patriarchy and gender discrimination, this would definitely fill us with enormous pride. There never could be a better moment than this to celebrate women's power.

Even as these inspiring stories of women’s achievement give us reasons to believe that India’s future belongs to its women, instances of educated women committing suicide because of dowry harassment, send us into paroxysms of anger. In a horrific incident last month, three sisters in Rajasthan died by suicide along with two children after they could no longer put up with physical and mental torture because of dowry harassment. All these sisters were graduates and married to the brothers from the same family. They deserved a life of dignity and respect, but perhaps they had no inkling that more than their educational background and human worth, they would be treated as the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.

Pressed down by mental torment and humiliation, and their minds reduced to frightened rubble, they decided to take the extreme step of ending their lives. According to data, 19 women die of dowry deaths daily in India and the same number is because of domestic abuse.

The more things change, the more they remain the same in our country. As we celebrate 75th year of our Independence, our society still remains unsafe for women --- they can be deflowered, suffer domestic violence, and brutally killed for dowry. When women fall prey to such restorative perversion and radioactive hate, we must tumble to the fact that, we as a society, have failed our womenfolk.

Women are no stranger to body shaming either. Radhika Gupta, one of the youngest Indian CEOs, recently wrote in an online portal about being bullied for her "crooked neck". She even contemplated suicide at the age of 22 after she got her seventh job rejection. But Radhika’s courage and determination, and encouragement from her husband, led her out of her own thickets of despair to her role as the CEO of Edelweiss MF, at the age of 33.

There is no doubt that more and more women in our country are breaking the glass ceiling in various fields. And as the MeToo Movement showed four years ago, women continue to face sexual harassment in so-called progressive spaces. But those women who called out male chauvinism made it clear that women cannot be expected to subsume their gender identity under overarching, homogenising patriarchy. They are demanding a better working environment free from male toxicity.

In recent years, young women’s attitude towards marriage has undergone a sea change. More and more women are putting their wedding plans on hold to focus on their careers. Matrimony no longer remains their ultimate destiny as many would like to believe. Also, as growing incidents of dowry deaths show, even in educated families, women education no longer guarantees a happy and successful marriage since its foundation is being chipped away by the corrosive fluid of greed and murderous impulses.

To a majority of working women, job satisfaction and a reasonably good salary have helped them achieve financial independence in the last two decades and given them greater control and autonomy over their own lives. There are numerous instances of working women embracing singlehood to enjoy the time and space they require to lead a happy life. Modern women are mature enough to take a call on marriage. Interestingly, marriage no longer remains a heteronormative term. Recently, a 24-year-old woman from Gujarat married herself. This interesting phenomenon, called sologamy, might gain traction in the coming days in our country where women would prefer self-marriage to enjoy being single and discover their identity. Sologamy has become quite popular in countries like the United States and Japan.

The major area of concern for women remains the dowry menace that is destroying thousands of marriages every year. But, when push comes to shove, they should walk out on their insensitive husbands and go back to their parents. Why do we always insist that women must ultimately find their fulfilment through marriage and motherhood?

Maybe things would have been different if the three sisters of Rajasthan showed courage and went back to their parents’ house after being harassed for dowry. Perhaps they would be alive today. They could have taken up a job and led financially independent lives after settling for a divorce. It is not surprising that the sisters may have been brainwashed into believing that the life of a woman is incomplete without a man, no matter how odious, incompatible; that their sasural was their real home where they should always learn to “adjust”. This mindset of parents needs to change now. We must encourage our daughters to learn to live life outside of the log kya kahenge calculus of conformity and sanctions.

(The writer is a Delhi-based journalist)