Hey Mister.. Are You Married?

“Ek chutki sindoor ki kimat tum kya jaano Ramesh Babu…”

This is a famous dialogue from a Bollywood movie which everyone would have heard of. Well, it’s true.

How would men ever know the worth of a pinch of vermillion that the women bear on their forehead for all their lives? It is more like a heavy load of subjection to men that they carry over their head!

The Wife: Someone meeting with burgeoning demands

Since time immemorial,  many married women are treated as ‘objects’ by their husbands as well as by society. This cruel objectification of wives still exists in our 21^st century society where we boast of equality and feminism. In earlier times, colonists used to invade a place and make the inhabitants of that place- their slaves. And chains were bound on their hands and neck; and some mark of slavery was engraved on their body. In the same way, a girl is given over to a man by her family. It is socially accepted that the husband would claim the ownership of wife just like a master-slave relationship.

And she is also bound by the chains of ‘bangles’, ‘mangalsutra’ and badged with ‘sindoor’ as a mark of her subjugation under the hands of her husband. Then, he orders around, she has to oblige.

In our Hindu culture, the “Sindoor” ( vermilion ) and ‘Churiyan’ (bangles) are considered as a symbol of a married woman and shouts out her non-availability for the other men in a society. The bangle not only binds her hands but it shackles her liberty too. A woman with these so called marriage adornments are expected to be a ‘Dharma-Patni’ of the man she is married to. And the women who are married and don’t wear these symbols are condemned and cursed by the society and their family.

The question is- Do we also have a symbol of marital status for the men? No!

These symbols are mere ‘Chastity belts’- an attestation of her fidelity. Why didn’t the torchbearers of our culture also award a mark of fidelity to the men folks?

These symbols show that a woman is committed and obliged to a man; whereas we have nothing to signify the same for a man.

How would the society know whether a man is married or not?

Let these questions echo in the ears of anti-feminists, culture-carers and male chauvinists. Let’s wish that these questions shake their soul, heart and open their eyes.

It should be left on the women themselves whether they want to adorn these symbols as ornaments or not. They must be given a right of choice. A woman’s self-will must be respected.