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By Manisha Massey

"I'm the youngest of the three siblings; I have an elder sister and an elder brother. My own understanding of early marriage started in my very own house by looking at my elder sister. She's 21 now but ever since she turned fifteen, my father has been pressurizing her to get married.  I wonder how it would be for me!"

Rita*’s observation is not an exceptional one. It merely illustrates how the prime importance of marriage is always justified in the name of upholding tradition and culture. For most of us, especially if we are women, there’s absolutely no way of escaping marriage. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that shaadi, the Hindi word for marriage, is probably the first word a child learns after mummy and papa! For many of us, marriage is simply a matter of karmic destiny.  As we enter our teens, we start hearing talks about our eventual marital fate, when we should still be exploring ourselves and our individualities. Many enter matrimony without even knowing what it entails. Our glorious plans for our own future and any life aspirations that we may have are smothered by the forced and strict adherence to the social institution called marriage.  Anyone who challenges it becomes a transgressor as he/she rejects the societal norm.

Rita continues her story: "There is this tremendous pressure on my didi to get married. Whenever my father goes away for any social or family gatherings, wherever he goes, he comes back home bearing the news of yet another proposal for my sister". Rita adds that recently, her father told her sister about a potential groom who had just finished his graduation and was looking for a bride. While he was still unemployed, both his parents had secure, government jobs and apparently, that is the only thing that mattered. But like always, Rita’s sister refused. “My sister wants to do a lot in her life; she’s an achiever,” Rita says. “She wants to stand on her own feet and make a difference in this society. She believes that a man who cannot even take care of himself isn't yet ready to get married and start a new family. And I couldn’t agree more.”

This pressure to get married, especially more for a woman, because that is the only known way to "settle down" is something that hovers over a woman’s head probably from the moment she hits puberty. It is like an unsaid ordinance that one must resign to. Those famous, "so, when are you getting married?" at various wedding ceremonies, and the unsaid expectation of most certainly marrying the person one may have just had the privilege of dating—these are instance  we're certainly not  unfamiliar with.

Rita went on to talk about one of her classmates who got married while still in high school. "Although she was much more mature as far as her age was concerned, her marriage, nonetheless, was something she did not embrace happily or willfully. She was forced to get married to this man she had never even met before. In fact, she had not even seen his photograph!” The fate of this girl was anybody’s guess—soon after her marriage, she dropped out of the school and thus ended any dreams or aspirations she may have had.

The fact that Rita's sister is still unmarried is something that lingers in her house all the time.  Her parents are most concerned about how she is wasting her life away when she should be getting married and handling her responsibilities as the good wife, good daughter-in-law and eventually good mother—the three significant identities a woman is expected to adhere to. Not a single day goes by when there is no argument in the house about her marriage. But Rita is still hopeful. As she sees her father forcing his will on her sister, the young woman is happily living her adolescent years as an independent individual with aspirations and desires for herself and her future.

Think about it. Perhaps every woman can relate to Rita and her sister’s story. Because the expectation to get married and being forced to do so by putting unbearable pressure and even exercising emotional blackmail is extremely familiar to us all. Ultimately, we must remember how much of this can we accept, accommodate, adapt or resist in pursuit of the ultimate goal of fulfilling our "social responsibility" of being born as a woman.

*Name changed to protect identity

FAT has begun its work on the fight against early marriage by training young girls on photography and filmmaking so they can shoot and produce a film highlighting the pressure to get married. To know more about this and contribute to the collective fight, click here. 

Manisha Massey is a graduate in psychology from Delhi University who is currently interning with FAT.