In Search of the Lost Girls

Partha Sarathi

Recently, Kiran Rao’s movie Lapata Ladies raised a few very important questions–why and how girls in India became ‘lapata’ (i.e. lost or untraceable)? Can’t women in this country survive without depending on men? In the beginning of the story, the audience found two married girls becoming ‘lapata’, when their husbands were swapped while they were travelling in a train to their in-law’s house. One of the girls could detect this error after getting down in the railway station and took refuge there herself; while the second girl, in her own volition, proceeded with the ‘wrong’ husband, as she grasped the first opportunity to get rid of the bondage called marriage. She was determined to pursue the study of organic farming, but due to mounting family pressure, was forced to get married.

The purpose here is not reviewing the movie, but to discuss the question of our lost girls, to initiate a conversation on how and why women get lost in our society. Not that the girls in this country are lost only in the institution called marriage, there are hundreds of other avenues for their being lost. Millions of girls are killed right in the wombs of the mothers, hundreds of newborn girls end up in garbage dumps; thousands of young girls are trafficked to far-away places. But the most common way for Indian girls to get lost is probably the marriage institution. Also, they get lost for remaining unmarried, for being widowed or divorced, in which instances the society begins to lament how they would survive without the guardianship of a man. In the movie, Lapata Ladies, a lady running a tea-stall in the railway station quipped, ‘After a lot of thinking, I have concluded that the women don’t at all need men for their survival. The only thing is that they must learn to stand on their own feet.’

But the society goes on chanting that women cannot survive without relying on men, echoing the teaching of Manusmriti that for sustenance women must depend on their parents in childhood, on their husbands in youth, and on their sons in old age. This view is so deep-rooted in the society that most women also believe in this proposition. And that is why they almost unconditionally accept the age-old practice of marriage which is highly discriminating and humiliating. In fact, the society compels girls to enter the labyrinthine of marriage, knowing well that they would hardly come out unscathed.

People are so habituated in witnessing girls losing their independence, their identity, their right to pursue their lives in their own way, once they enter the system called marriage that one never notices the consequences they suffer. Here, one would like to examine in brief how marriage begets a process to slowly devour the self of a woman as a human being.

Presently, girls are getting more educated than boys and relentlessly striving to earn a living. But whatever qualification a girl achieves, or earns, her family and the surrounding society become restive about her marriage as she grows up. This writer faced the first question from one of his comrades: ‘When you are going to arrange your girl’s marriage? ’But what is the point in arranging her marriage at all? She is an adult and would decide her marriage on her own. If she doesn’t feel like, she won’t. Hearing these arguments, the comrade became embarrassed and left. So, this is the state of mind of people in the society. Even people with left orientation and so-called radicals also harbour the notion that for girls, marriages have to be arranged.

Noticeably, the society does not bother much if a man remains unmarried throughout his life, while the presence of an unmarried girl in the house becomes a headache for all. Even if her parents are unwilling to get her married against her will, all the relatives, friends, office colleagues and neighbours would poke into the individual choice of the girl. According to the scriptures, a daughter is a liability for the parents, a burden for the family. Alas, the parents of today’s society cannot yet feel free from this burden.

In highly educated families, one may find instances of not treating girls as a burden; but even in this writer’s own family, educated relatives are becoming anxious about the daughter’s marriage. And the daughter too has to frequently face the same question, ‘When are you getting married?’ Incidentally, she is a schoolteacher, self-reliant and freedom-loving, but the society at large cares very little about the freedom and independence of a girl.

In truth, women’s rights have little place in all high-sounding discussions about human rights. This fight for women’s freedom is a difficult one, and it is essentially the women’s fight. The society needs to be shaken repeatedly to make it realise that women are also human beings (more human than men, as they possess more human qualities). The country needs millions of girls like the second one in the movie Lapata Ladies, who are ready to tread a long path to fulfill their dreams, overcoming all obstacles on the way. They, only they, would be able to force society to accept that women should have all the rights that men enjoy.

Why in this 21st century a girl have to stay in the in-law’s house, accept an unfamiliar house as her own home, accept the husband’s parents as her own, maintain distance from her own family, change her surname and be known in husband’s surnames, put vermilion on her forehead and wear white bangles to advertise her marriage status? In normal life, when someone is evicted from his/her home, the person breaks down in rage and protests in tears and the society boils against injustice. But when a girl is ousted from her home before one’s very eyes and forced to leave her near and dear ones in tears, society remains indifferent. Isn’t it a crime to force the girls to wipe off their self-identity at a stroke, and leave their childhood abode along with all companions and memories?

Human life not only requires food and clothes. In the serfdom, slaves were just provided food-shelter and clothes against their labour. Even today some so-called ‘Bhadralok’ (civilised) families keep small children in their homes for menial work in lieu of food and shelter. Similarly, in the traditional marriage system, the ‘swami’ (husband), literally meaning owner, takes the responsibility of providing food and clothes to a girl, who in return has to look after not only her husband but all her in-laws, prepare food for them, conceive child (children) and raise them and bear thousand other responsibilities—all for the husband’s family. Even an earning girl, who is not dependent on her husband for food and clothes, is compelled by social conditions to perform all the duties in her in-laws’ house.

Now if one accepts that human civilisation is destined from slavery towards freedom, how do people accept the unfreedom of women as so natural? The entity of a human being is shaped by one’s own family and local environment——her/his friends and companions, studies and education, social and cultural milieu and numerous other factors. In this process, the senses of self-identity, self-respect, individual rights and values flourish like a hundred flowers in one’s psyche slowly bit by bit. Then all of a sudden, one day she is compelled to enter an institution called marriage, which instantly robs her of self-identity. What could be a more severe punishment than stripping one of her own identities?

In today’s reality, a few educated married girls could live outside the house of their in-laws because of her or her husband’s workplace. They are to some extent spared from the ordeals faced by the married women, staying in the confinement of their in-law’s house. Obviously not many have this opportunity. When a girl chooses her own partner, she gets some opportunity to understand the partner, but she remains unacquainted with or may dislike the partner’s family. Yet society would advise her to regard the in-laws’ house as her own, and adjust with a different family, a different milieu with different cultural settings and different values. This amounts to sacrificing everything of her own and becoming subservient. For economically dependent girls, society leaves almost no other option open, and they cannot even think of getting rid of the bondage, namely marriage, however unbearable it becomes for them.

This is the heritage and culture. In this country, the system of marriage is a fine process of gender-suppression, in which the pains and agonies of a girl are covered up under the huge pomp and splendours of festivities and ceremonies. And then, if one finds the quiet and gentle girl, under the pressure of marriage, begins quarrelling with her husband, pressing to get separated from her in-laws, leading to strained relationship with them, society squarely blames the girl. Then if she bears a child, she gets more entangled—which is a matter of separate discussion. One needs to have separate discussions on the problems of girls who are not married, who refuse to get married and who are separated divorced or widowed. In fact, the problems of women are so multi-faceted and so neglected that once one starts delving into them, there seems no end.

And then, if persons belonging to Hindu and Muslim religions decide to become partners for life, or two same-sex individuals, male or female, decide to live together, then the marriage as an institution becomes extremely vulnerable. Practically, this marriage system is still highly influenced by religious values, and probably no region on earth is based on the modern concepts of human rights. Thus, whatever modernity people show overtly, be vocal about equality, freedom and democracy, they have to walk a long way to become modern and democratic if considered in the context of women's liberty.

[Translated from a Bengali article, published in Manushi Kotha, Year 8, Number 11, 2024]

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Vol 57, No. 11, Sep 8 - 14, 2024