The happiness in being single

Aradhika Sharma 

Why should there be shame in being single?” asks Col Abhinav Malhotra. “My elder daughter got married at 37. My family — conservative Punjabis — constantly pressurised me to get her ‘married off,’ but I encouraged her to make her own decisions.”

 Her life, her choice! To give a push to the same thought, when an NGO begins an online campaign ‘Happily Unmarried,’ you raise a toast to two things. First, being single and not taking social pressure, and, second, getting married, that too not under pressure. The drive encourages single women to share their stories about how their chosen spinsterhood has given them the liberty to live as they want to. It’s common enough in the West to find online expressions that celebrate singlehood. Campaigns like #JustmeJanuary, #onlymeOctober and #nomanNovember and #Don’tdateDecember do the rounds regularly. 

So, when the feminist group Majlis Legal Centre, started the “Happily Unmarried” campaign under #SingleSeptember, several women came forward to share their stories. Among them is Rachael Alphonso, 29, an MSc in Nutrition and Dietetics, who shared: “Dear family friend, thanks for your concern, but this is what I have to tell you: I will get married if I want to and if a partner really adds meaning to my already very happy life. I will get married for companionship, not to fulfill irrational social norms or to please society.” 

Being single by choice is a way to smash the shackles of patriarchy. Get married by a certain age, have children in the next few years and live happily ever after are the rules to be adhered to not only by women, but men too. Only in the case of women, time frames are more defined. 

Priya Loona, who works in an online design company, says, “Girls get hustled into marriage without being prepared for it. Films, music, TV shows, all promote the same social compulsion, perpetuate the same myth — marriage is important and it gives direction to life. Before they know it, they are married to a person they might not know, not like too.” It’s worse if the marriage turns out to be abusive and the girl is unprepared to fend for herself, mentally and financially.

Madhu, a maid, who works in several houses is ignorant about any online campaign. But she, too, has a story to share, “I walked away to save myself.” She left her abusive husband and one night escaped from a remote village in West Bengal. She came to Chandigarh with her one-year-old daughter and pregnant with her son. “Sometimes life would become so difficult that I felt like committing suicide. I didn’t understand the language, I didn’t know what life in a city would be and I had no idea how to work in people’s houses.” Bringing up a boy and a girl on her own wasn’t easy, but she prevailed against the odds and is happier for the decision she took.

Tara Sehgal, who works in an IT firm, tells, “Corresponding to the joy, I slot a marriage in four categories. These are: happily married, happily unmarried, unhappily single and, lastly, unhappily married. I’ve been in the last position and I know just how miserable it can be.” Now in the happily unmarried category, she says it’s a better position to be in.  “I battle the stress of being responsible for my decisions, making ends meet and even loneliness sometimes.” But having experienced both states, she believes that a happy state of mind is what matters the most. 

Radhika Saran, a lawyer, adds: “It’s important to encourage girls to make informed decisions without succumbing to the pressures of society. Allow them the choice to walk out of a marriage if the partner is abusive.” 

The pressures that Indian women face are quite different. Even when the divorce rate is at an all-time high, the importance given to marriage to live happily ever after hasn’t suffered a bit. That needs to change!

And if online campaigns can make the slightest dent in the norms, let’s welcome them. Wholeheartedly. 

The flip side

The aim is to empower women to invest in themselves and not feel embarrassed about singlehood. Some, however, could start believing that it’s alright to walk out of a marriage simply because it’s not all she thought it would be. “Caution needs to be exercised before universally extolling the virtues of singlehood. I had a client who said that she wanted a divorce because she had ‘fallen out of love’ with her husband. We forget that marriage is also about companionship and friendship. She had two very young children, and it wasn’t right on her part to take an impulsive decision,” says Radhika Saran.

(Names have been changed on request)