Bride dies during wedding - so groom marries bride's sister same ceremony

[Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

This makes me so angry. Women are indistinguishable pieces of property

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9644501/Bride-drops-dead-heart-attack-wedding-India.html

For those posters unhappy with a DM link (dowry issue noted) here are some other versions of this story.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kanpur/bride-dies-before-wedding-rituals-groom-marries-her-sister/articleshow/83048184.cms

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/indian-bride-dies-at-wedding-so-sister-says-i-do-zplwq5c38

I'm approaching this from a feminist perspective. Why is this situation - where one dead bride replaced by her sister - okay if it's an arranged marriage?

Basecamp - I'm not an expert in Yevamot by any means, but I thought the brother was expected to offer to marry the childless widow, but she could turn him down. Without a welfare state and with limited female participation in the jobs market in Judea around 500BC, this was intended to save her from starvation.

Some of the Jewish marriage rituals are a bit quaint - I don't find them vile - that would be sacrificing the widow or forcing her into exile. Non-Jewish brides wear veils as well, and brides were being duped in the UK until relatively recently. The reason Hardwicke's Marriage Act didn't apply to Quakers and Jews was that these groups could be trusted to run and record their ceremonies properly. And I quite like having our wedding contract on the wall....

Even in India young women don’t drop dead like this. She clearly killed herself (in India cause of death isn’t searched for in all places; so a 19 year old who has drunk poison dies of a ‘heart attack’ not suicide)

Plus you have to remember this is Bihar where girls often get forced into marriages and in this situation it would have been up to the groom’s family to offer to marry a younger sister, not the bride’s. Deaths during marriage (especially on the bride’s side) are considered a hugely negative omen and so the groom’s family must have deeply respected the bride’s family for this to even be on the table.

There is clearly more to the story.

In Hinduism brothers can marry each others’ widowed wives under certain situations. Men are also encouraged to see their wives sisters (especially younger ones) as ‘half-wives’ - due to in part to old traditions where men were often married to all the daughters in a family at the same time, and also because a mausi (mother’s sister) is considered the best stepmother for a child.

@Ozanj

Even in India young women don’t drop dead like this. She clearly killed herself (in India cause of death isn’t searched for in all places; so a 19 year old who has drunk poison dies of a ‘heart attack’ not suicide)

Plus you have to remember this is Bihar where girls often get forced into marriages and in this situation it would have been up to the groom’s family to offer to marry a younger sister, not the bride’s. Deaths during marriage (especially on the bride’s side) are considered a hugely negative omen and so the groom’s family must have deeply respected the bride’s family for this to even be on the table.

There is clearly more to the story.

Thanks Ozanj for that perspective, it hadn't even occurred to me that the bride may have taken her own life. In her photographs she looks terribly ill.

@Ozanj that’s exactly what I thought too

samG76. I’m no expert either but understood the law as one that encouraged the brother of a man who dies to marry his widow especially if the woman had not had children . Could be wrong though.

My experience of the marriage ceremony and the weeks beforehand with the rabbi insisting on a Mikvah, talks with his wife about fulfilling the role of a good Jewish wife and mother along with the lifting of the veil to make sure I’d not been swapped for someone else and having to go in front of a panel of men to receive a get when I divorced all made me feel commoditised and inferior and aware that men make the rules that I was expected to live by. To me it did feel vile. Certainly nothing felt quaint about them.

it's rural India, and no doubt the story will have been received fifth hand (at best) by the DM

Even a cursory reading of the story informs you that it's taken from IANS, which is India's largest news agency.

It doesn't mean the story's true, of course. It just means that it's not fifth hand, and it's not an example of DM's crap reporting. It just means that it's a story lifted from a news agency, and any errors in it will have been in the news agency's original copy.

Not necessarily - the DM is renowned for adding its own spin. They certainly didn’t witness the event I was involved in that they reported but clearly did a sensationalist take on the reporting of the journos who were there.

Not necessarily - the DM is renowned for adding its own spin.

Maybe. I agree the dowry detail is odd. I just checked on the byline and the reporter is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi. He has managed to obtain a quote from a family member: "One of Surbhi's uncles, Ajab Singh, told MailOnline it was a 'tough call' for the family to carry on with the wedding."

The bulk of the story appears to be taken from agency copy, however.

Arranged weddings have nothing to do with love etc though, it's an agreement between families. In this case it appears ( if accurate) that they carried on the agreement rather than cancel despite the tragedy. The report says it was a difficult decision and talks of the paradox of celebrating a wedding whilst mourning. I feel for all involved but think saying it proves women are a commodity and blaming the bride's family or grooms family is not understanding the culture.

Something similar to this happened to my great grandmother. Her older sister died in childbirth with her second son. It was just expected in her travelling community that my great grandmother would marry her brother in law although she recalls she was just 15 at the time.

Having seen her sister die a very painful death, my gran was not keen to get married or have sex, but she was given no choice in the matter.

Her brother in law/ husband was a violent man. Fortunately for my gran, he died a few years later, and she courageously broke away from her community and started a new life with her two daughters and two nephews.

Obviously I'm not suggesting this tradition is still commonplace in travelling communities. However rates of domestic abuse are still frighteningly high and I'm grateful my gran was able to get her family away from such a toxic environment. Her nephews grew up to be lovely, kind men.

I would add that despite being widowed aged just 19 she never remarried!

I claim no expertise and I have no issue with the idea of arranged marriages as long as both parties fully understand what's happening and have given their consent. I would apply this principle in any culture.

Whilst I realise we probably don't know all the facts, I find it hard to imagine that any woman who had just seen her sister die would be in a position to give her informed consent to marrying the groom.

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

This kind of situation seems a little different when instead of seeing marriage as what you do when you're in love, loving someone is what you do when you're married.

I see this situation as being a contract between two families who weren't over bothered about which sister their son married, as long as they got the dowry. Absolutely despicable.

On what basis are you saying this? You have no idea that the families are only interested in the cash that changes hands.

There are families which don't care about their children's happiness and only money, but lots do, and that is not incompatible with arranged marriages. If both families felt that the match was with a family which they'd be compatible with, that the young people involved were likely to be good spouses, that's still the situation.

There are any number of people most of us could have good marriages with, and in every case it would take work for them to be good marriages. That's a more realistic approach than this view that there is some special person you are uniquely compatible with. Similarity in background and values predict happy unions as much as any other set of characteristics, snobbish as that may seem. That's not the same as seeing people as interchangeable.

Many a tale of the groom shagging the bridesmaid(s) before the wedding. Why even Charles had a mistress on his wedding day to Diana.

It's epidemic that women are seen as fair game and men are expected to hunt them down and conquer them.

Smoked I'll repeat this from a previous poster because I think this neatly sums up some of my feeling around this issue.

"Whilst I realise we probably don't know all the facts, I find it hard to imagine that any woman who had just seen her sister die would be in a position to give her informed consent to marrying the groom."

If it turns out that the marriage had been delayed to give this young woman time to process her sister's death and give her consent then Id view it differently. But, from the way it's been reported, that didn't happen - her sister's body was still in the house according to all those articles. That does not sound ok to me.

Likewise, if Diana had known about Charles's relationship with Camilla when she first agreed to marry him then no problem as far as I'm concerned. But according to all reports I've seen, by the time she found out, the marriage plans were in full swing and she felt unable to back out.

@Ozanj

Even in India young women don’t drop dead like this. She clearly killed herself (in India cause of death isn’t searched for in all places; so a 19 year old who has drunk poison dies of a ‘heart attack’ not suicide)

Plus you have to remember this is Bihar where girls often get forced into marriages and in this situation it would have been up to the groom’s family to offer to marry a younger sister, not the bride’s. Deaths during marriage (especially on the bride’s side) are considered a hugely negative omen and so the groom’s family must have deeply respected the bride’s family for this to even be on the table.

There is clearly more to the story.

We don't know why she died, and we never will, as there hasn't been an autopsy. Suicide is clearly a possibility, but young people do die suddenly, on occasion, from heart disease (strictly speaking usually from arrhythmias or heart failure, rather than heart attack- myocardial infarction). A sudden death isn't necessarily suspicious or indicative of suicide.

@Redwinestillfine

Arranged weddings have nothing to do with love etc though, it's an agreement between families. In this case it appears ( if accurate) that they carried on the agreement rather than cancel despite the tragedy. The report says it was a difficult decision and talks of the paradox of celebrating a wedding whilst mourning. I feel for all involved but think saying it proves women are a commodity and blaming the bride's family or grooms family is not understanding the culture.

Quite right. Unfortunately other countries, may have a different viewpoints. Some women marry for convenience and that’s also their choice to make.

Also I’d like to add, arranged marriage is not the same as a forced marriage. I find the lack of distinction unfair because in the latter, the groom and more often bride, do not have a choice in the matter. Whereas in an arranged marriage, you are able to turn down the proposal. There are many cultures that have forced marriages and there are other cultures who look down on that, but are ok with arranged marriages. There are many cultural differences, but I do think there should be a greater awareness that forced marriages and arranged marriages are not the same thing.

Whilst I realise we probably don't know all the facts, I find it hard to imagine that any woman who had just seen her sister die would be in a position to give her informed consent to marrying the groom."

Agree. But the groom was also forced into marriage. I think people have to understand the culture here, marriage is a business transaction between families. Arranged marriages, even ones where you meet the Bride on the day are not uncommon.

This was two families continuing with an agreement. Neither the bride nor groom were really the priority.

My reading is that it was the groom who proposed marrying the sister instead. If not then yes, I'd have the same concerns about him.

As I've said, I understand marriage can be a business transaction and, as long as both parties consent, I don't have a problem with it. I do have a problem if there isn't consent. It's the difference between an arranged marriage and a forced one - and it can happen in many cultures.

I find the way the DM spins such stories incredibly distasteful. They are deliberately trying to foment outrage and spread cultural intolerance. I wish Mumsnetters wouldn't start frothing at stories like these. As several PPs have pointed out, the 'facts' are probably completely different, and this story will be fifth hand at best. Let's keep our outrage for matters that we know more about.

@whatwasIgoingtosay

I find the way the DM spins such stories incredibly distasteful. They are deliberately trying to foment outrage and spread cultural intolerance. I wish Mumsnetters wouldn't start frothing at stories like these. As several PPs have pointed out, the 'facts' are probably completely different, and this story will be fifth hand at best. Let's keep our outrage for matters that we know more about.

Completely agree.

The DM story contains quotes from two of the dead woman's brothers and an uncle. No word from any of the female members of the family. So who knows how they feel about it.