From: dheeraj@eng.umd.edu (Dheraj Sanghi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Towards More Just Norms for Marriage: Continuing the Dowry Debate
Keywords: REPOST.
Date: 26 Jan 93 22:38:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: mojo.1k4ehqINN1o2
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park
NNTP-Posting-Host: coke.eng.umd.edu

I had posted the following article several years ago. It might still
be relevant to the current debate.

-dheeraj
---------------


The following article appeared in MANUSHI, no.  53, Jul-Aug.  1989.  I am
reproducing it without permission.  It has been written by Madhu Kishwar,
editor of Manushi.  This article clarifies some of the issues that she
raised in her earlier article, 10 months before this one, that I posted on
SCI two weeks ago.

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		Towards More Just Norms for Marriage:
		Continuing the Dowry Debate

	My article "Rethinking Dowry Boycott" in Manushi No.  48, 1988,
provoked a diversity of responses.  A few of them seem to be based on a
misunderstanding of what I wrote.  Most of the confused responses were not
sent to Manushi but to other newspapers and journals, where they were
published and generated a rather ill defined controversy.  [Footnote:  See,
for instance, Sunday Observer, Dec 25, 1988; Sunday Free Press Journal, Jan
29, 1989; EPW, Jan 28, 1989, May 13, 1989, April 29, 1989.  A number of
other papers also carried articles commenting on the Manushi article, in a
spirit of friendly debate, for instance, Indian Express, Jan 15, 1989; Mass
line, March 1989.]  Several of the writers seemed not to be regular readers
of Manushi, as they reacted to the article in isolation, rather than in the
context of Manushi's 10 year long engagement with this and related
questions, and many earler writings in Manushi on these issues.  Manushi, I
feel, is the most appropriate forum for the continuation of the debate
sparked off by the article, hence the present attempt at laying out more
systematically its implications.

	Many of those responding to the article simply reduced the issue to
one of being "prodowry" or "antidowry" and labeled me and Manushi as
having turned "prodowry".  This is a major distortion of what I wrote.  To
say that the antidowry campaign (of which Manushi has been an active
participant) has been faulty and ineffective and needs to be rethought is
not at all to say that our dowry systems are justifiable.  My article, as
its title indicated, was not an evaluation of dowry practices, but of our
strategies thus far of combating it, primarily of the call to boycott dowry
weddings, given by Manushi in 1980 (see No.  5, 1980)

	Manushi has always tried to encourage reflective and self critical
accounts of various campaigns by the activists involved in them.  We have
tried to avoid passing editorial judgement on campaigns of which we have no
firsthand experience.  Instead, we try to get activists of the campaign to
write about it, or talk to us on tape about their experience of organizing
in all its complexity -- the successes, the setbacks, the changes in
approach, and the insights that hopefully, develop with looking back on
one's experience and reevaluating it.  This kind of reflective writing by
participants is, we feel, essential to the growth of any movement.  It is
through such sharing that others can learn and can, in turn, be stimulated
to think and rethink strategies for change in our very complex social
fabric.

	In the case of the antidowry campaign, we can speak from firsthand
experience.  Manushi was among the organizers of one of the first
demonstration in Model Town, Delhi, against a family whose daughter-in-law
had been murdered following maltreatment accompanied by dowry demands (see
Manushi #3, 1979).  Manushi continued to be consistently active on the
issue over the next decade at various levels -- organizing and
participating in protest demonstrations, issuing a call for dowry wedding
boycott, offering legal and other aid to victims of marital violence, and
conducting research studies of dowry practices in different communities.
Hence, my critique of the campaigns strategies was in the nature of self
criticism which I felt was worth sharing with readers of Manushi.

	My experience was that my boycotting dowry weddings did not bring
about any change in dowry practices in my social circle.  More important,
by talking to and listening to numerous women, I found that women did not
think that merely getting married without dowry, all else remaining the
same, would alter their powerless position for the better.  In the absence
of any better option, many women I spoke to even perceived dowry as being
of some limited benefit to them, given their dependent situation, lack of
fundamental rights, overall disinheritance and lack of control over assets.
It was this multifaceted experience over the 1980s that compelled me to
review the strategy of boycott, and to try and think of more effective ways
of equipping women to refuse dowry and to demand something better.

	A more meaningful dialogue would have been possible if others had
come forward to state whether they actually had boycotted dowry marriages
and to what effect.  Personally, I know hardly anyone who has
systematically boycotted dowry marriages; therefore, I feel the debate is
stunted, amounting merely to a criticism of my conclusions rather than a
sharing of experience.  The antidowry movement, like the government's Dowry
Prohibition Act, has even failed to define dowry (as distinguished from
gifts) and has been unable to implement its antidowry rhetoric on any
significant scale.  the generating of antidowry rhetoric on a large scale
has merely led to a situation where any number of people profess to be
against dowry yet continue to practise it.

	Many readers have responded with thoughtful contributions, whether
agreeing and adding or disagreeing.  Unfortunately, some others have
reacted with thoughtless attacks, questioning our integrity and bonafides.
These attacks are distressing because they seem designed to discourage
reflection and instead to maintain a stagnant uniformity of underdeveloped
opinion on major issues.

	My questioning of the antidowry campaign was not a questioning of
the premise that dowry in its present form operates against women's overall
interests.  This is an obvious fact, too widely acknowledged to need
labouring.  In an earler article, "Dowry -- To Ensure Her Happiness or to
Disinherit Her?"  (Manushi #34, 1986) I had analyzed how dowry operates as
part of a system that disinherits women.

	However, I felt that in simply repeating that dowry is bad and by
merely asking people to stop giving and taking dowry, the antidowry
campaign was not going far enough, hence its singular ineffectiveness.  No
one can deny that over the last decade, simultaneous with the growth of the
antidowry campaign, dowry, far from decreasing, has actually increased and
spread.  A common reaction of people to this fact is that the antidowry
campaign is ineffective because women are too backward to respond to it,
and it is primarily because women lack courage to refuse dowry that it
continues.  It seems to me that such a response is uninformed and
insensitive.  It is no different to the government's response to the spread
of waterborne diseases.  With the onset of the monsoon, government begins
to waste money on big hoardings and on radio and TV ads telling people not
to consume dirty water and food.  When people do not obey these warnings
and fall sick, government attributes their sickness to people's folly and
unhygienic habits, considering that it had done its duty by warning them.
However, a casual glance at the conditions in which most people in city
slums are forced to live reveals that they drink dirty water not because
they are foolish but because no clean drinking water is available to them.
The lack of a viable option impels them to appear to act against their own
interests.

	Similarly, if women have not, on any significant scale, heeded our
call to boycott dowry, we are not therefore justified in concluding that
this is because they suffer from "low consciousness" and all we are
required to do is shout louder for them to wake up and listen.  Rather, we
should examine what women's real options are, and what we can do to develop
and enhance more viable options.  At the moment, most women do not have the
option to refuse dowry.  The few who do refuse it do not bring about any
change in the overall situation because dowry seeking grooms can easily
find others willing to enter into a dowry marriage.  The situation is
analogous to that of bonded labour, where simply releasing bonded labourers
without changing the overall situation of rural poverty and lack of credit
for the poor, fails to improve the condition of the released labourers.
They are forced to enter into bondage again in order to survive.
Unfortunately, many more will be available to take their place should they
refuse.

	I am not advocating that we now give up in despair and accept dowry
as an unchangeable fact.  I am arguing that while dowry in its present form
needs to be done away with, this cannot be done simply by telling women to
say "no" to it.  We have to work to enable women to exercise a genuine
option, to say "no" to dowry but "yes" to something better.  They have to
be able to see a realistic possibility of improving their lives by refusing
dowry and making other positive choices.  If they merely refuse dowry but
have to marry under the present conditions which force on them a dependent
and exploited position in the family, very few will see any point in
refusing dowry.

	Dowry in its present form in India I consider pernicious - but not
because there is anything inherently wrong in a woman's family giving her
material assets at the time of her wedding.  All other things being equal,
the possession of assets should enable a person to have greater control
over their life.  But in our social and familial structures today, the
woman is not perceived as an agent in control of her life and financial
condition.  This perception, in part internalized by the woman herself,
also changes the significance of the dowry.  Dowry functions as part of a
cultural system wherein the woman is a devalued object, a liability to be
disposed of at a discount in the interfamily transaction that is marriage.
Since she is divested of intrinsic value, everything associated with her
also gets devalued.  Her family, her friends, her education, her
employment, her personal qualities - all are downgraded and made pretexts
to harass and taunt her.  Numerous cases dealt with by us testify to the
fact that marital violence frequently occurs for reasons or on pretexts
completely unrelated to dowry.

	Dowry in its present form is pernicious not only it serves as one
handle among many to harass the bride.  more important, it provides a
socially acceptable way for many parents to abandon the woman to the
mercies of her husband and in-laws.  Her parents convince themselves that
they have done their duty by paying a dowry, and their daughter has no
rightful claim on them.  The daughter too is trained to acquiesce in this
belief.  Letters from numerous maltreated daughters to their fathers are
eloquent testimony to the fact that a woman who seeks to be received back
into her natal home after her marriage, feels she is begging a favor
rather than claiming a right.

	Dowry, thus ends up as a way to disinherit the daughter, not just
materially but morally.  Since dowry is perceived by most people as the
daughter's share in parental property, she is in the position of a child
who has taken its share and become severed from the parental home.  This is
one reason for the anxiety of many parents to pay a dowry at all costs, so
that they can claim to have shed all responsibility for the daughter.  But
the catch is that the daughter (unlike a man who may take his share of the
property before his parents' death) usually has little or no control over
the dowry, and even if she has some control over it, it usually consists of
consumer items which cannot generate an income.  So dowry actually
functions as one of the devices that prevent her from establishing an
independent existence apart from being the wife of one man and the
daughter-in-law of another.

	It was as part of a strategy to combat this culture of women being
allowed to survive only on the sufferance of husbands and in-laws that I
had suggested a shift in the focus of the antidowry campaign to the demand
for inheritance rights.  It is significant that historically, any attempt
to ensure women's inheritance rights has been violently opposed by women's
fathers and brothers (the supposed victims of the dowry system).  For
instance, a perusal of the parliamentary debates in the years preceding the
passing of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, is very instructive in this
regard.  Men were united across party lines in opposing equal inheritance
rights for women on the ground that it would create discord between
brothers and sisters.  In other words, they virtually admitted that a key
element in the asserted harmony between brothers and sisters is the
disinheritance of the women.  While some brothers accept their obligation
to give dowry, few are willing to concede inheritance rights to women.
This is evident in the near universal flouting of the Act today.  Overall,
despite their lamentations over having to give dowry, most fathers and
bothers much prefer to give dowry than inheritance rights.

	It is not enough to say, as many of those reacting to my suggestion
have said, that inheritance rights for women were always on their agenda.
there have been no concrete plans to make it a reality.  It has been given
much less attention than the antidowry campaign.  I suggested that any will
or document, such as a gift deed disinheriting a daughter in favor of a
male heir, be treated as an invalid legal document, so that it would be
impossible for parents to flout the equal inheritance law.  This proposal
goes against the current trend in development of laws governing property.
I had expected it to be a controversial proposal and arouse a debate.
Instead, it has been completely ignored and all the debate has centered
around my criticism of the dowry boycott strategy.  The failure of most to
notice and react to the proposal on property rights which advocates a major
change in property laws, shows how nonseriously we take the issue of
inheritance for women.

	The tendency to blame the victims, women, for failing to refuse
dowry, arises from a basic conceptual confusion in the antidowry campaign
as to who are the main victims of dowry.  As much or more sympathy is
expended on the sufferings of the fathers and brothers of women as over the
women's own sufferings.  Most of the reactions to my article focused on the
sufferings of brothers whose inheritance was frittered away on the dowries
of their sisters and on bizarre stories such as the description of a father
who had to sell a kidney to save for his infant daughter's dowries.  If
every family that has a daughter is seen as a victim of the dowry system,
then who is really to blame?

	Most families, even wife murderers' families, are at some times
givers of dowry.  To see all giver families as victims enables parents of
girls to indulge in self pity and decry dowry when it is their turn to
give, without having to acknowledge the benefits they derive when it is
their turn to receive.

	We must clearly distinguish between those who are the real gainers
from the system and those who may get a few crumbs but overall remain the
losers.  Although, in individual cases, women's fathers do suffer hardships
and losses, particularly if they happen not to have sons to compensate, on
a societal level "fathers of women" cannot be identified as dowry victims.
To identify as the victims is to foster the dangerous conclusion that the
girls themselves are to blame.

	The dowry system on a societal level works to disinherit women
while keeping wealth transfers between men.  A man who gives dowry for his
sister or daughter is likely to receive it for himself or his son.  But the
woman is never, in her own right, a receiver.  As a bride or mother-in-law
she may use some part of the dowry - usually clothes, jewels or household
goods which do not alter her basic financial status, and hence she may
perceive it as of some immediate benefit to herself.  However, it does not
function to enhance her status as it does that of the man who receives it
because he is a man and as such, labeled a superior being who must be
compensated for taking on the burden of a wife.

	Unless we are clear about whose interests dowry serves, we cannot
know whom we should primarily address to eradicate it.  Dowry is not a
natural phenomenon like a disease which affects the whole population, and
in whose eradication everyone has an equal interest.  It is a societal
phenomenon.  from which one set of people - men - gain overall, while
another set - women - lose overall, despite exceptions and apparent
contradictions.  But the antidowry campaign has not made this distinction
clear.  Its call to eradicate dowry as a "social evil" has been vaguely
addressed to everybody, as if the whole population would immediately and
equally benefit from the eradication.

	Why is it that women, the chief victims of dowry and of
disinheritance, do not demand implementation of the laws in these matters?
One reason is that our legal system works in a way that it safeguard only
those individuals who are in a position to claim their rights by fighting
long, costly and often inconclusive battles.  Women as individuals are
rarely in a position to do this.  The laws are not framed to ensure the
rights of women as a group.  The situation may be compared to that
prevailing in regards to land reforms.  We do not expect that if we keep
appealing to landless poor people to demand land, they will individually
start demanding land from landlords.  Instead, land reform legislation is
expected to be implemented wholesale - whole groups of landless poor are
expected to gain rights to land at one stroke, and assistance provided to
ensure that their entitlements are not snatched from them by the powerful.

	Experience has shown that only a very few individual women are in a
position to demand their property rights, and their own individual rights.
In Manushi no.  30, 1985, we had written about Lata Mittal, who challenged
the Hindu Succession Act to demand her share in her father's ancestral
home, but even now the case has not been decided and the woman, buried in
oblivion, continues to fight a lone battle.  Maki Bui, the old tribal woman
who filed a petition in the supreme court along with Manushi in 1982 for
the right to inherit the land of her husband and pass it on to her
daughter, has faced great harassment and risks to her life in her village,
and probably will not live to see the judgement and its effects, if any.
Even when a favorable judgement is delivered, as in the Mary Roy case,
very few women of the community benefit and come forward to demand their
rights.  Thus, most individual battles have led to demoralization for the
individual woman and little societal change.

	If any document that disinherited daughters was automatically
invalidated, all daughters would find themselves equal inheritors, without
having to enter into legal disputes or protect their rights.  If a parent
makes a will leaving all the property to male heirs alone, then the legal
machinery which executes the transfer of property will be obliged to
include the names of the daughters as well, as equal sharers.  Dowry would
probably suffer a severe blow since fathers and brothers who knew the
daughter was bound to get an equal share in all assets would hesitate to
give a dowry in addition.

	As far as dowry wedding boycott is concerned, my rethinking
regarding it does not mean that I will now start attending dowry weddings.
I still do not attend them.  However, in agitational terms, I no longer
would focus on the kind of wedding I would boycott, because I find this an
inadequate strategy for change.  Instead of focusing all our energies on
dowryless marriages, I would like to focus on evolving new bases for
marriage.  The assumption underlying marriage today have to be changed
completely if women are to get a better deal.  Even if at first only a
handful of weddings exemplifying an explicit rejection of women's
oppression take place, they at least will have the potential to serve as
positive alternatives and role models for those who aspire to a more humane
way of life.

	At present, the cultural ideal is that women should give and give,
endlessly, smilingly, however unreasonable the demands on her, and however
harmful the consequences for her.  This ideal fosters the vesting of
unrestrained power in the hands of the husband and his family.  All that
the woman is guaranteed out of the deal is the auspicious status of a
married woman, with whatever protection and respectability in the eyes of
society this may confer.  She may in addition get other benefits but those
are not guaranteed to her.

	A woman who appears to have lived up to the cultural ideal is held
up as role model to others, not just in films and popular literature, but
also in real life.  The bizarre assumptions of the ideal are:

* The ideal woman does not demand any rights except those that her husband
and his family choose to give her.  Since she belongs to them she does not
protest against their behavior, however unreasonable.  This part of the
ideal is comparable to the dictum of Victorian legal authority, Blackstone,
who laid down that the husband and wife are one and that one is the
husband.

* The ideal woman never complains against her husband or in-laws to anyone,
not even to her parents or friends.  She pretends that all is well even
though she may be suffering untold tortures.  Her parents too should aid
her in living up to this ideal by refraining from any intervention on her
behalf.  By so refraining, they are believed to be helping her "adjust" to
marriage, which is a euphemism for unquestioning acceptance of whatever her
husband chooses to mete out to her, good or bad.

* The ideal woman does not demand to be consulted when family decisions are
being taken, even when these affect her life or that of her children.  She
gracefully accepts her husband's decisions.  The husband and his family
need not consult her if they do not wish to, but have a right to expect her
submission.  They make take unilateral decisions regarding expenditures,
shift of residence, social connections, education and upbringing of
children, which she must then implement.

* The ideal woman does not consider anything her own.  She considers all
her assets, including her person and her labour, as belonging to her
husband and gracefully parts with anything he or his family desires.  She
does not dispose of anything without their permission.  Decisions regarding
her employment may be primarily taken by her husband and his family - if
they wish her to earn, she does so; if not, she refrains.  She does not
claim any right over her earnings and only undertakes expenditures to which
they do not object.

  On the other hand, she has no indisputable or independent claim on the
earnings, assets, business, inheritance or properties of her husband and
his family.  At the most, she has a right to be maintained in whatever
style they deem fit, and she does not demand a better lifestyle for herself
than what they ordain.  If the marriage breaks up, her claim to maintenance
is assumed to lapse.

* The ideal wife does not undertake or maintain any relationships,
associations and alliances of her own, not even with her natal family,
without her husband's approval.  She does not object, however, to her
husband's right to establish all and any kinds of associations and to take
on social and financial obligations such as expenditures on his family or
loans to his friends, without her prior consent or knowledge.  She
participates in and makes sacrifices to help him fulfill his obligations and
commitments.

* The ideal wife never refuses love, care and sexual relations to her
husband, no matter how uncaring he may be.  She accepts her husband's
primary right to determine the number of children to be borne, and if she
fails to produce them, especially healthy sons, she is no longer an ideal
wife.

* While monogamy for the husband is today the approved ideal, infidelities
by him are expected to be condoned by the wife, whose tender and unswerving
loyalty is expected to reform him.  However, she is not expected to take
offense even at his baseless suspicions of her fidelity.

* The larger community is expected to honor such an ideal wife.  But since
the ideal wife claims no rights, the community is not expected to enforce
any for her.  If she claims rights, she is no longer ideal and the
community is expected to treat her credentials as highly suspect.

* The ideal wife dies before her husband, thus remaining "sada suhagin."
As this term suggests, no woman is to be considered happy until she is
dead.  This ideal is the logical culmination of the idea that her existence
is subsumed in her husband's.

	The ideal, as outlined above, is rarely sought to be forced on a
woman in an undiluted form.  Wide variations in detail exist as between
communities, regions and individual families.  Usually, some parts of it
are implemented more sternly and others less so.  But even if only some
parts are implemented, the situation proves suffocating for the woman.

	No woman can wholly live up the ideal of effacing herself
completely, even though many sincerely wish to do so.  Women always express
resistance in some form, however muted or disguised.  But the acceptance of
the ideal at a conscious ideational level makes women feel guilty for their
resentment and resistance.  It leads them to blame themselves just as
others blame them for not being "perfect" wives and daughters-in-law.  Thus
these cultural norms play a crucial part in creating the present degrading
relations between men and women in the family.

	The total imbalance in the fundamental rights, autonomy and power
as between men and women in the family destroys many women physically and
demoralizes many more emotionally and intellectually.  A dowryless marriage
in and of itself is not likely to alter this imbalance.  Dowry is an
additional instrument to carry out the woman's humiliation but is not the
cause of it.  Women's oppression did not stem from dowry and it could
survive in a virulent form even if dowry were somehow to go out of fashion.

	The kind of wedding I would like to see and participate in would be
based on principles of mutuality and reciprocity of rights and obligations,
not merely selfless giving on the part of the woman.  Principles of
mutuality should not be merely privately agreed on by couples that wish to
act on them but should be publicly affirmed.  The marriage should not be
merely a sacrament but a public agreement.  We already have in India one
such tradition in the shape of the "nikahnama."  Registered marriages also
involve a contract of sorts.  However, neither of these is sufficiently
based on principles of mutuality.  Also, the parts that grant the woman
some rights have been reduced to a rarely enforceable and therefore empty
ritual.

	To put content into the agreement, the following could be the
affirmations and guarantees to be publicly made:

1.  The "shadinama" or marriage agreement should involve both families as
guarantors.  The woman's natal family should give a commitment that they
are not washing their hands of her or giving her away but that she
continues to have as much right to their home as their sons, and can call
on them for help at any time.  They should commit themselves to giving her
an equal share in inheritance which she will receive with her brothers, if
any, at the time of her parents' death, or earlier, if her parents so
desire, but not at her wedding because such an arrangement would tend to
merge into the present day dowry system, would cause her parents hardship,
and would mean that marriage is treated as altering a woman's status in a
way radically different to that of a man.

2.  Although no dowry would be paid, if the couple were setting up a
separate home, both parents could equally contribute to the expenses
entailed in this.  If one partner is to live in the other's parental home,
then any expenditure on the wedding celebrations, on new clothes,
jewelry, gifts to relatives, and so on, must be mutually agreed upon and
equally shared by both parties.  The woman's parents are not to be
responsible for more than an equal share of the expenditure or
arrangements.  Responsibility must be equally shared and the celebration
jointly hosted, so that neither family is in the position of having to
entertain or defer to the other.

3.  The husband and wife would pledge that even though they are marrying in
order to build a life together, they retain their basic human rights and
responsibilities as individuals.

4.  The woman will continue to maintain her relationships with her natal
family, and her husband and her in-laws will not interfere in any way with
these.  She and her natal family will continue to have obligations towards
and claims on one another.  She will be free to take as much responsibility
for her parents as she feels is necessary.

5.  All decisions affecting family life will be taken jointly, with each
partner having an equal say at every stage of decision making.  This will
include decisions regarding finances, expenditure, savings/investments,
shift of residence, social connections, lifestyle, the education and
upbringing of children.  In the event of the husband unilaterally taking
any decision without consulting his wife she will be free to refuse to
participate in its implementation.  If it affects the children adversely he
will be obliged to reverse it, should his wife object, or at least to
ensure that she is enabled not to participate in it.

6.  Both partners, if both are employed, will take equal responsibility for
smooth running of the household and the upbringing and welfare of the
children.  The decision whether or not to earn will be taken by the woman,
as it is her right to decide whether or not she wishes to devote herself to
domestic work alone.  If she earns, she will have a right over half his
earnings since she is contributing by way of taking primary responsibility
for the running of the house and care of the children.

7.  All property and assets acquired by either partner from the day of the
wedding onwards, will be jointly owned and will be equally shared in the
event of a separation.  If the couple sets up a nuclear family, the
matrimonial home will belong solely to the wife while she is raising the
children.  If there are no children, the home is to be treated as equally
owned and whoever resides in it must compensate the other financially.  If
the woman at the time of marital breakdown is living in her husband's
parental home, she must be provided with a home adequate for herself and
the children.

8.  The woman will retain the right to maintain and/or establish her own
social circle, continue her friendships, alliances and associations, join
any organization, political, social or religious, that she wishes.  These
are individual rights, decisions regarding which do not have to be jointly
taken.  Commitments and obligations arising out of individual alliances are
to be met by the individual from his or her own time, energy and share of
the family income, without the other partner's necessary participation.
Whatever norms of fidelity are mutually agreed upon and declared by both
partners will apply equally and without distinction to both.

9.  Since the woman's health is vitally involved in childbirth, she will
have the primary right to decide the number of children, the spacing
between their births and matters relating to their care in infancy which
relate to her body.  In case she is not able to bear children (whether due
to her own or her husband's inability to reproduce) this will in no way
affect any of her rights or claims as a wife.

10.  In the event of a separation, custody of children below 14 must go to
the mother, unless the father in a court of law prove that she is unfit as
a mother.  Custody of children over 14 should be decided on the basis of
the child's own expressed preference.

   If the woman is not earning, the husband must pay maintenance for her
and the children.  If she is not earning and there are no children, she
should get half his income.  If there are children, the income should be
divided, giving each member an equal share of it.  If both are earning
equally, they contribute equally to child support.  If the man is earning
more than the woman, he contributes proportionately more.

	These, or similar commitments, together with others that apply to
the specifics of each marriage, should be made in writing by the couple at
the time of marriage, in the presence of all the wedding guests, witnessed
and guaranteed by elders of both families, and by any other friends or
relatives whom each party wishes to invite.  Suggesting that couples enter
into such a contract does not obviate the need to work for changes in law
as well.  It merely indicates that individuals and their families need not
wait for changes in law in order to try to implement their beliefs in their
own lives.

	If conflict arises at any point in the marriage, over either or
both parties not honoring their commitments, either would be entitled to
appeal to the guarantors who in turn would be obliged to intervene and
oversee negotiations.  If the marriage breaks down, the guarantors would be
required to mediate and oversee a fair settlement in the terms laid down by
the marriage agreement.

	Making such commitments will not ensure that all or any of them
will be honored.  But, at least, the man who dishonors them will be made
to feel in the wrong, instead of feeling, as at present, that he is merely
behaving in the normal and acceptable way.  Even if a small percentage of
couples come close to honoring such a commitment, they will serve as
important inspirations for others.

	Some of the proposals made above may sound farfetched.  These
proposals are not meant to be definitive formulations but rather as a basis
for a wider debate.  Such a debate could bring up more concrete and better
worked out schemes for reforming marriage norms and building women's rights
into them.

	Not much research work has been done on the subject of changes in
marriage patterns and norms in different parts of India in different
epochs.  We are, however, somewhat familiar with efforts at change that
began in the late nineteenth century.  For instance, Mahatma Phule
vigorously campaigned for more egalitarian norms within marriage through
his Satyashodhak Samaj.  His work had wide influence in Maharashtra.

	Gandhi's stated convictions on the new norms needed in marriage had
a much larger inspirational influence throughout the country.  In the
course of the movement, many followers of Gandhi made systematic efforts to
live up to the new ideals of the man-woman relationship within marriage and
came to be regarded as models.  These included well known figures such as
Jayaprakash Narayan and his wife, Prabhavati, as well as any number of
lesser known ones all over the country.  (see, for example, interview with
Indumati Kelkar in Manushi No.  48, 1988).  Though the total number of
people who tried to implement a variety of new norms was small, they helped
to challenge the legitimacy of oppressive social norms that operated
against women.

	Today, we need to carry the tradition of such reforms a step
further.

-- 
Dheeraj Sanghi			(h):301-474-3592	(o):301-405-2723
Internet: dheeraj@cs.umd.edu	UUCP: uunet!mimsy!dheeraj
I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk
ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war. - Mueller
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian