Did you watch the now-viral video of an Engineer forcefully being married at Gunpoint in Bihar?
No? Well, you can check it up. And no, it isn’t a unique instance of it happening. The term for a marriage like this is, ‘ Pakadua Vivah’. I do feel sad for the guy who becomes victims of this.
Not to take anything from their victimhood nor make myself indulge in an exercise of whataboutery, I’m just left with one thought. The thought that this ‘forced marriage’ is so common for the opposite sex. The Woman.
How normalized we’ve made the forced marriage of the woman folk that it doesn’t surprise us like what the rest of India feels for the guy who is getting forcefully married at a gunpoint. There are multiple imaginary emotional guns and izzat at stake for the girl to get married according to her parents wish.
Among the many reasons:
1. Isse acha rishta kahan milega?
2. Umar nikal gayi to?
3. Khaandaan ka naam ka kya hoga?
4. Zamaana bada kharaab hai aajkal ka
And of course, there’d be many similar instances of that ‘emotional gun’ pointed at the women to ‘get married’, because that’s the only reason they’re born on this earth. Get married and have babies.
Not to divert from the topic of ‘Pakadua Vivah’, one of the prime reasons for this is the inability of the bride’s family to pay Dowry for a proper marriage that pushes them to take this step. There are ‘abduction gangs’ who even do this professionally.
When you dive deep into this, the finger again comes back to pointing at another problem: Dowry! Yes, because just marrying the woman is not enough, the groom and his family also need money, bike, house and what not!
And in many of these cases, the marriages don’t get annulled. They Adjust. Because, of course, India. Marriages are also jugaad based.
Rationally, you’d wonder, how can one stay in a marriage like that? But rational (ha ha!).
The vicious cycle has just one possible solution, to make the women independent enough that they don’t need a marriage for validation of their achievement. The parents, of all the people, have to realize this. Next is, do not place the entire existence of women (even men) onto the successful completion of the act of marriage. And, not make the system of separation so rigid that people continue to live in unhappy marriages not to try and make it work but because of ‘log kya kahenge?’