Unequal equation

Satish Kumar Dogra

Many years ago, when I was the Superintendent of Police in a district and was handling a case of domestic violence against a woman, a legal hurdle arose and I tried to explain to the young victim how both men and women were equal before the laws.

Something that had been building up within her now exploded and she said, "Sir, what are you talking? Where is the equality? Do you know that when a girl crosses 20 and the parents are not able to get a match for her, this becomes a source of social calumny for them? Do you know that a stage comes when an unmarried daughter becomes such a burden on their mind that they would be ready to marry her to a tree, if only the society accepted it as marriage?”

This was more than two decades ago and things have improved since then in some layers of the society. But has the “Equation of Marriage” changed? An equation is a mathematical way of expressing a relationship between entities. When we say that, assessed by a certain set of criteria, 

Mango = Apple, it means that, for that set of criteria, a mango is exactly the same as an apple. In case the two are not equal, variables can be added to make the two equal. The equation then would change to 

Mango = Apple + x + y + z + a

The “Marriage Equation” in India usually requires a number of variables on the side of the girl to make her equal to the boy. The equation Boy = Girl is rare.

The more common equation is  Boy = Girl +Relocation of the girl to the boy's house + Dowry + the girl giving up her job +the girl accepting to serve the members of the boy's family.

In algebra, apart from the concept of equation, there is also the concept of the Unequal Equation. This is expressed by using the “greater than” sign. Thus, in our society, usually Boy > Girl. In a large number of families, the Equation of Inequality is  Boy > Girl + a + b + c + …..  The implication is: whatever is added to the right hand side of the equation, it will always remain less than the left hand side. This mathematical representation is enshrined in the concepts of ladke waley and ladkiwaley, where the latter can never claim equality with the former. 

The inequality does not lie in the laws, but in the practices of the society. It is a society where a woman has to generally depend upon her husband for her survival. He is the bread-earner and the protector. In most cases, it is put as a condition for marriage that the girl will have to give up her job. Where such a condition is not laid, the girl has to sooner or later give it up in order to look after her family. A Dowry Prohibition Act was enacted in 1961 as “An Act to prohibit the giving or taking of dowry.” The rules framed under Section 9 of the Act, however, permit the receiving of gifts by the bride as well as the bridegroom. The rules also provide that separate lists should be prepared for the gifts received by the bridegroom as well as the bride and signed by both.

The law per se is good, but the provision for receiving gifts paves the way for demanding and receiving of dowry. The rule about signing of lists is rarely followed. At the time of marriage, insisting upon the preparation of lists would cast a shadow of doubt whether the marriage will succeed. And once the marriage begins to break, the rule about the lists goes in favour of the groom's side as the dowry items cannot be claimed in the absence of a signed list. The expenses for the marriage ceremonies finds no mention anywhere. 

 Ours is a country of millions of households, and drawing conclusions from our limited experience is sure to give a distorted view of the reality. 

Those settled abroad are the most privileged in playing with the lives of young girls. It is often difficult for the parents of the girls to verify the details about such young men. At times, it turns out that the boy was already married. In one case I know of, the boy had undergone hip-replacement. This fact was concealed from the girl and her parents. A court marriage was conducted in a hurry on the ground that the boy would not be able to stay for long. The parents of a girl in such a situation do not want to lose a good match and fall prey. Once abroad as a couple, many of these NRIs keep the passport of the girl in their custody and do not allow her to come back. 

In the absence of clear and easy procedures for securing the presence of NRIs during legal proceedings in India, girls have to wait for justice in case of criminal cases, and their resettlement in another marriage gets delayed in case of divorce proceedings. And if the other members of the family also escape to a foreign country, the poor victim girl cannot but rue her fate. 

The fear of arrest is often used by conscientious police officers to put pressure on the in-laws of the girl to help her get back her jewellery and other items of dowry. There is no doubt that the provisions of dowry-related laws are misused by some people to harass the boy and her relatives. The corrective measure would be to find ways and means of reducing such misuse rather than doing something that might put a halt to the benefits the hapless women of the society were drawing from these legal provisions. 

Equal laws applied to an unequal equation may satisfy the requirements of law but not of justice. The entire issue needs to be examined in detail, if the girl, who lives in fear of molestation before marriage, is not to live in fear of torment after it. 

The writer is a retired Director-General of Police, Tamil Nadu.