Love marriages banned in Indian village

[AnnieLobeseder]

More erosion of women's rights, this time in India.

But I guess with the huge erosion that's going on the US at the moment over the elections, it's hardly surprising that other parts of the world are following their lead.

Interesting question, Annie.

Elephant, you went on the attack before I drew breath. Don't moan now.

I think anger is the only rational response, accuracy, and that anger is shared by many Indian feminists. Yes, the casual discrimination is indeed perpetrated and reinforced by many Indian women themselves, and I find this difficult, but I don't think it makes it right. I have seen too closely the effects of the poor status of rural women to accept that this is merely a question of culture.

Many women are guilty of female infanticide. The fact that women are carrying this out themselves doesn't make it any less abhorrent.

Well, it's women carrying out most of the FGM in the world too, but I don't blame them. These women are only operating under the patriarchal framework in which they are raised. There was a story on here recently about the missing millions of girls in China and India, and someone posted a link to a very vivid story of an infanticide in India, which haunts me.

Annie: I might be wrong but I don't know how much women in such villages would respond to media campaigns. I'm thinking, not very much. But it could be that small women's rights groups who are more aware of what's going on outside are carrying out subtle but persistent work in the villages that is encouraging change. Also the men in the village who make the rules would be more aware of cultural change, so could be responding to that.

It's an interesting point because if as Jinsei says this is overturned, it could have the effect of empowering more women in the end than if they had never done it. If it becomes a cuase celebre that champions women's rights then that would be a good thing.

Yes, I take on board the points about sexual discrimination being reinforced by women.

But also the stuff Jinsei is saying highlights the uses of "just" talking about it. Someone posts on Mumsnet, anyone could read it. Any one of us might have a high profile job or be a journalist, or Melinda Gates, or anyone. The international pressure comes via the media which is after all just the dissemination of details. If NO-ONE bothered to spread the word, so that only the local people knew about this, that's when there would be little chance of change.

Of course there is a lot more to do than just talk, but I wanted to defend the power of talking and sharing stories.

Yes, Annie, that was sort of my point - the fact that women have internalized inequalities in their culture that they then perpetuate doesn't necessarily make those inequalities merely a matter of cultural difference.

(Though personally, I do blame any individual who commits female infanticide, and I know many others in that culture who feel likewise)

It does have a power Elephants but it is very frustrating when you know that in a largely illiterate society at that level, and where women are really quite unlikely to be literate, and to read English language newspapers in India for example, it means that change is going to be at a glacial pace. At the risk of contradicting my cause celebre comment. That's why I think local women's groups would be the most powerful office of change. And I don't know to what extent and how western feminists should be involved in making the change happen.

Very interesting, I will look in the morning.

Elephants I think I was rather unfair there, bigging up the media before, and then less so when you talked about it. I was displaying prejudice because you were snarky earlier. I think your comment is a fair one.

elephants, I agree. If enough people are talking about these issues, the Indian government will be under more pressure to respond.

It's an interesting question as to how much rural women are likely to be affected by media campaigns accuracy. I'm not sure, but one thing I'd say with some certainty is that the likelihood is much greater now than at any time in the past.

Ten years ago, I don't think anyone had a television in any of the villages that I know. In the last few years, though, the electricity supply has become somewhat more reliable, and it has become rather the done thing for new brides to bring them as part of their dowries. As a result, they are now much more widespread. Initially, I only ever saw the men and children watching them, and when I asked a female relative if she just wasn't interested, she said that it wasn't for uneducated people like her. Fast forward a few years, and that all seems to have changed! Women are watching tv now, where it's available, and with that will come a creeping awareness of how things could be different. And of course, so many more women are literate now. Over time, I believe that this will have an impact.

"It only seemed pretentious if you don't understand a more complex sentence structure and longer words"

Lol. I speak 4 languages and I'm being lectured on grammatical complexity! Awesome!

You're seriously lacking in social skills.

Thanks Jinsei. It feels as though there must be room for hope.

Deep interest in the issues there Messy.

I do have deep interest in the subject thanks. Just not a deep interest in being patronised by an intellectual snob.

So why don't you scurry back to those posts which do fit the criteria of your dazzling intellectual standards. I've never seen a thread derailed in such a pompous way. They should devise a new chapter in "derailing for dummies" just for you!!

A question for those with knowledge of Indian culture. If arranged marriages are very common, that presumably means that both women and men end up with someone they aren't necessarily attracted to. So the next logical step for me is that there must be some level of infidelity as people do tend to have lustful urges and chemistry is undeniable.

So, the question is, does society look the other way when infidelity occurs? And, most crucially, do they look the other way equally for men and women? Or is it like many other countries where men are indulged but women tend to end up dead for their 'sins'.

This discussion has become really interesting. Have stuff to do but hope to comeback later.

I genuinely don't know about infidelity. I'm sure it must happen, but it's really not something I'm aware of. I'm sure there probably would be double standards if it came to light.

Most of the arranged marriages I know work pretty well tbh, despite the fact that women in particular having had very little say in who they marry. (Talking about rural women in particular - arranged marriages for urban educated women are very different IME) I don't know, maybe the expectations are a bit different, or maybe people just make the most of what they've got. Also, I think there is a general acceptance that they won't get all of their emotional needs met by one person as people sometimes seem to expect of partners here in the west.

The biggest problems that I have seen in rural marriages have typically been related to alcohol abuse, which can lead to serious domestic violence as well as the squandering of very limited resources. I suspect that infidelity is the very last thing on the minds of these women, as all of their energies are focused on the day to day survival of themselves and their children. :( These are the women who many of the grass roots groups are focused on helping, and rightly so, as they desperately need the support.

It is interesting that the Indian media are now highlighting these abuses of women's rights. I used to work in communications and in a small, relatively well educated country like England it is pretty easy to get a media campaign going and to change the idea of what is and what is not acceptable - wearing seat belts, smoking in public, racial abuse etc. would be examples.

I really hesitate to offer advice about a huge culturally disparate country such as India as it clearly far more complex than England but I think that one (albeit slow) way forward would be to try to establish a network whereby issues and incidences can be got to the media. It would have to start small, clearly, then spread regionally. The spread of social media over the next decade would be crucial in this.

I worked quite a lot with the Indian media in the past and their attitude is not dissimilar to British media i.e. bad news is good news so to speak. They will highlight the controversial and shock/horror stories. Of course, how you do it faced with the demographic, geographical and cultural differences within India is the big imponderable.

We shouldn't underestimate the power of the media to bring about change. An example from the UK: we have known since the early 50s that smoking caused lung cancer and other diseases. But in the first 20 years after that discovery every anti-smoking story was "balanced" by the media with refuting comments from the tobacco industry. It was only after the media stopped "balancing" its articles in the 1970s that smoking rates started to fall dramatically. Not me saying that - that is the view of Sir Richard Doll, the epidemiologist who wrote the seminal research paper on the smoking/cancer link.

Sorry, that's a bit of a stream of consciousness. But the signs are there that the media are taking these issues up. Somehow I think people who care have to capitalise on that.

Thanks crescent moon for the link. Such depressing reading. A first thought is that it is baffling why the more literate women should be opting for aborting girl babies etc. But then a horrible logic kicks in. The more literate the woman the more she appreciates she is a second-class citizen and the more she realises how unjustly her life is circumscribed. Who, in their right mind, would want to bring a daughter into a world like that?

Sadly, I don't think anything will change until the shortage of women really causes men to suffer - then they will take it seriously. While it is only women suffering most won't care. And of course the double whammy is that under this distorted sex ratio women will suffer twice - if they have not been dispensed with before or at birth then they will be harassed, kidnapped as "brides" or trafficked so that men can continue to have sex.

The article referenced by the OP is not of the same degree of horribleness but it is part of the same cultural philosophy - whatever it is that is wrong, blame the women.

Grimble - that's already happening in China. This thread was discussing it a while back. And we were Not Pleased that the original article linked to was looking at the issue of the poor men who can't find wives because so many women in their cohort had been aborted/killed at birth. No consideration of the women who were, um, well, dead.

I am really heartened by this thread now, and I appreciate the value of this board as simply a "talking shop". This story has been picked up by the Daily Mail now and what Jinsei, Grimble, Eclectic and Crescent have said about how the media is effecting change slowly from within is very important. Who knows how the Mail picked it up but my own feeling is that there is a symbiotic relationship between mumsnet and the Mail, however much women here may dislike that, and there's no doubt journalists will be trawling for something that has captured interest (particularly when it chimes in with their "agenda" which may run counterpoint to a feminist agenda much of the time but in this case will ring a lot of their bells about how foreigners comport themselves as everyone will no doubt recognise). India is pretty obsessed with its PR abroad and this sort of thing doesn't look good. So blithering on about it without actually "doing anything" may be "doing something" after all!