Is patriarchal violence an inherent factor of marriage? Can the vehement efforts that appear in the form of social pressuring, exclusion, or outright assaults to maintain this social order really be seen as disconnected occurrences?
Nivedita Menon describes the three key interlinked features of the 20th century nationwide 'Indian' family as - patriarchy (power distributed along gender and age hierarchies, but with adult men trumping older women); patriline (property and name passing from father to son); and viri locality (wife moving to the husband's home).
Suppose one is to look at the transactional nature of marriage and how it plays an integral part in upholding this holy institution. In that case, the loss of agency and alienation a woman experiences becomes clearer. Historian Margaret Hunt explains the roots of marriage as a means of transferring property, occupational status, personal contacts, money, tools, livestock, and women across generations, and kin groups. Dowry can be seen as another manifestation of such nature, this practice of “gift-giving” in marriage could be better understood as a transaction between the men of the families where the woman has little to no right to the same. Srimati Basu argues that the Dowry Prohibition Act (amended in 1984) is ineffective because it can do little to address the social mechanisms through which dowry flourishes, and it can come into play only if a complaint is filed.
The grim result is the commodification of women, stripping them away from financial resources and the ensuing history of structural violence.
This commodification also dictates that life for women be devoid of any desires or emotions or even a choice and fixes a tax on the love of sorts that only demands. The politics of women’s bodies and how they are seen as an extension of their husbands after marriage leads to the non-recognition of sexual assault in marriage. Exception 2 of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code states that “sexual intercourse by a man with his wife, (the wife not being under fifteen years of age), is not rape”. In a split judgment passed in May 2022 on a petition seeking criminalization of marital rape, while one judge was in favor of criminalizing marital rape as it violated a woman’s right to consent, the other opposed it, stating marriage “necessarily” implied consent. Marriage’s sanctity and sacredness are used by many in this country, even the lawmakers and enforcement against victims seeking justice. Thus, taking from women their bodily autonomy.
Women’s sexuality is controlled and policed to keep this oppressive system of heterosexual marriage that deals with caste, religion, and class ongoing. ‘The real remedy for breaking caste is intermarriage. Nothing else will serve as the solvent of caste' (Ambedkar 1936: 67) Babasaheb believed inter-caste marriages could be a way to disrupt the rigidity of caste identities. With the inculcation of the ‘choice and love’ factor in marriage, such “detractors'' reveal the fragility of this age-old system and its fissures that have always been on the surface. These, thus, are scratched and curbed off through violence that takes the form of “honor killings” or forced separation in the name of tradition and so-called morals.
While on the conversation of biology and how it’s weaponized against women, one must remember how it exists in the domestic sphere of labor. The expectation of women being natural caregivers stems from a pseudoscience of control where domestic work goes unrecognized due to it being considered a biological duty. This extends to unpaid work performed by women on familial resources such as work in fields and harvesting. Nivedita Menon in her book, Seeing Like A Feminist, points out that “The sex-based segregation of labor is the key, to maintaining not only the family, but also the economy, because the economy would collapse like a house of cards if this unpaid domestic labor had to be paid for by somebody, either by the husband or the employer.”
The list of impositions posed by marriage on women is endless be it changing their surnames, a relatively new concept introduced in the British era to fit legitimacy, or how legitimacy works in the public sphere on a gendered basis where priority is given to the male figure of the family in defining women. Thus, it is important to question the shallowness of such structures that appear so natural but aren’t. To understand why the social fissures of non-heterosexual relationships and inter-caste marriages bring to the surface crucial questioning that can lead a way forward to new definitions of love and companionship quite the opposite of such exploitation.
Sources:
Nivedita Menon: Seeing like a feminist
The Institution Of Marriage Or A Foundation For Patriarchy & Its Violence?-feminism in India
About the author
The article was written by Supriya who is currently pursuing B.A. Program from Daulat Ram College, Delhi University, and is a second-year student.
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