Deepali Gaur Singh of RHRealityCheck.org talks about another… peculiarity of patriarchal culture, this time in India, particularly in the state of Bahir. Since it’s about men being forced into marriage it could easily be brushed off as another “man bites dog” story but there are a lot of interesting implications for men and feminism. Here’s the gist:
From what once sounded more legend, less fact, it is a menace that has assumed alarming proportions in recent years and spread to the neighboring districts too. The massive pressure of increasing dowry demands and the inability of most parents to fulfill them has resulted in families seeking the services of criminal gangs that kidnap unmarried men and force them into wedlock. Even as cases might appear rampant in certain areas many go unreported out of fear of these local criminals.
According to the police, over the years it has turned into a high-profit, low-risk business that many gangs thrive on as they earn a sizeable commission from these marriage-related kidnappings. And by stretching the saying of “honor among thieves” a little further, their responsibility does not end with the abduction alone. They ensure that the marriage is solemnized and the girl sent to the boy’s home.
Just to be absolutely clear the primary motivation for kidnapping men for marriage comes from “traditional values” in the area that, combined with poverty, turn already-undesirable daughters into financial and social catastrophes for families. The families of sons demand extortionate dowries of the families of daughters. The families of unmarried daughters are scorned and scandalized. Enough so that it’s pretty common to slaughter infant daughters at birth. Enough so that despite infanticide-induced shortages of girls (average age of marriage: 13!) families of sons still demand dowries the average local family can’t afford. Also, it’s made clear in the post that even when the groom is forced into marriage he and the bride are sent back to his parents/family, which can’t exactly be a bed of roses for her. The post also makes clear that the area is made even muddier by the fact that very, very often it’s families, not individuals, who arrange marriages even though it’s usually the individuals, not the families that bear the brunt of any and all unhappiness with these arrangements. And finally, it’s important to remember that bride’s families coercing men into marriage isn’t terrifically common even in India, let alone the rest of the world. That said…
It’s a wonderful illustration of the principle that the goals of feminism aren’t just for the benefit of women.
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Quick note: They’re not as familiar to English speakers with Western European heritage but for thousands of years arranged and/or forced marriages are and have been a feature of patriarchy for both women and men. There’s I have a tendency to equate “patriarchy” with “male dominance” and in recent centuries that’s been a lot more true. But in the past, and in much of the world today, it’s more accurate to call it an extended-family hierarchy system where, yes, the senior-most male is the titular patriarch but subordinate children, and not just subordinate female children, are regarded as instruments of their seniors. Just one more way the objectives of feminism worldwide go beyond benefits to women.
Submitted by 3257 (not verified) on Sat, 2009-10-24 19:10.
"There's a tendency to equate "patriarchy" with "male dominance" and in recent centuries that's been a lot more true."
I think "patriarchy" has actually usually worked as "dominance of everyone by some men."
[I was trying to be more specific about exactly which men, and I still think patriarchy's more of a co-ed enterprise, even near the top, but yeah, I stand corrected. (In fact I've corrected my text to reflect that correction.) Thanks for the nudge, Lynn. --fl]
Submitted by 3257 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-10-25 13:25.
Is it really unfair of me to view this as a sort of ritual like thagi? The rural location, the restricted social milieu of the participants, the careful selection of the victim, all of these have precedents in Indian history and sociology and all of it could be combated by the usual means. Still, it seems a marginal problem compared to bride-burning, etc, which is so difficult to handle precisely because the locus of control of the victim is the family. It was easy enough for the British (and later Indian) states to take apart criminal organisations when the locus of control was the clan or the gang, bigger targets making for easier cases and more "turning" of perpetrators, and much easier than dealing with problems like terrorism, where one is attempting to exert policy pressure on a neighbouring sovereign state.
Besides the "man bites dog" aspect, this would be analogous to simple banditry except that the ritual and institution have a specific social meaning and religious value, and that moves us into the realm of 1830-1904, with the exception that (we assume) marriage is an honorable and beneficial institution in the lives of at least most married Indians, who would say so if asked. Nobody benefits from being murdered by a religion-motivated terrorist or dowry-seeker, while marriage can run the gamut from uncoerced love match to family arrangement to slavery.
[I think I'd have to limit my response to the observations my 1st- and 2nd-generation Indian friends and colleagues have made about marriage in much of India still being much more strongly tied to family economics, status, and politics than many readers from, say, North America might be used to. And so yes, husband-kidnapping may be happening in the same constellation of practices that include wife burning and other forms of dowry extortion and which, from my outside eyes, seems to derive in part from the consideration of women in general and single or widowed women in particular as at best second-order citizens. I really couldn't say it's related to thagi. I sort of suspect not but I really have no idea at all. Thanks, ES. --fl]
Submitted by 3257 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-10-26 00:19.
I am probably viewing it through the optic of Israeli society, where law also addresses a continuum of interpersonal abuse and control ranging from witchcraft, marriage abduction, modern urban DV, coercive polygamy, to interstate terrorism. The few cases in which "fallen"/adulterous/pregnant outside wedlock women were offered a shot at redemption via suicide terrorism represent an episode of this sort of conflation of religious self-sacrifice, punishment of unruly female sexuality, and striking out at the foreign Other. Certainly some Israeli municipalities are doing the same thing with their recent focused law-enforcement interest in Palestinian men and underage Israeli girls.
I think I drew too much of a line to thagi because of the element of stalking, gang activity, deception, trust-building and then the Big Reveal, which seemed to distinguish it from dowry murder, and it might be the case that there is a patriarchal benefit, however bitter, in being taken alive into a form of slavery. The men are worth more alive than dead, the women more dead than alive.