Progress throws up difficult problems!

Maharashtra Times, 1 January 2023 featured a disturbing article. It is published with a photo of bridegrooms in Solapur who took out a public march to draw attention to their plight of not getting  brides. The marching men were in the age group of 28 to 40 and all hailed from rural areas. They have been trying but unable to get married for a long time. The article claims that almost every village in Maharashtra has young men who are unable to get married. Sadanand Deshmukh had mentioned this problem in his Sahitya Academy prize-winning novel Baromas.

Most of these men do not have jobs. However, they are economically active. Many are engaged in farming, in agro-based industries, in small businesses or are followers of political leaders. Just a handful are dependent on their parents but feel that with marriage, their prospects would improve.

I remember times when getting their daughters married off in time and avoiding social approbation was the biggest priority of parents. How did this complete about turn happen?

There are many reasons.

• Girls are better educated and want husbands who have equivalent or higher education. Girls have made good use of educational opportunities open to them and they are striving to be economically independent. Boys have lagged behind in rural areas. Many have just matriculated or done graduation in Arts. These courses have no job prospects. Girls shun these boys.
• Girls do not want to live in villages and small places. Urban life is hectic and crowded but it is considered open to new ideas and liberating in many ways.
• Girls prefer husbands with steady jobs. They frown on farming because of its risks and uncertainties. There are cases of young men taking up indifferent jobs in towns just to get married. After marriage, they leave the jobs and return to farming. Then the girls approach courts to dissolve the marriage! There are cases of young men who are prosperous farmers and earn handsome income from farming but they too, find it difficult to get married.
• Female infanticide was practised on a large scale in rural and semi-urban areas in Maharashtra a decade and two ago. There was rampant misuse of amniocentesis tests till women's organizations agitated against the practice. So the sex ratio is adverse in all the districts, advanced and backward, in Maharashtra. Therefore there is a real shortage of girls. Because of this shortage, looks and financial background of girls do not matter any more. In fact, older, separated and divorced women are also acceptable in marriage. Issues of caste, religion and region are also not important!

The article makes a plea that this has become a pressing social problem and it must be redressed satisfactorily. It does not outline how it is to be done.

A few years ago, I read reports of Jat farmers in Haryana facing a similar problem. In a few cases, Keralite women travelled to Haryana for marriage and in spite of linguistic, cultural barriers, the marriages were successful.

There was also a movie starring Tulip Joshi who had to become a modern day Draupadi after she marries into a family of five unwed, grown up brothers. The image of Tulip Joshi, all pale and confined to her bed is seared in my memory.