Arranged Marriage is Rape Culture, Plain and Simple
Upon my oath, I am not a violent man. - Sergeant Jackrum, The Monstrous Regiment
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| Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash |
And at those times, without fail, that person will take the opportunity to reach out and stab you in the back.
“Sure, I’ll help you,” she said, as I poured my heart out to her. “But will you do something for me in return?”
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to want to do anything for her in return. But there was absolutely nothing I could say at that moment, broken as I was.
“You must start looking at proposals,” she said. “I’ve waited until now to say something about it. But now you're almost done with college. You need another family that can help you. So you mustn’t say no, alright?”
There was silence on my end. She pressed on, perhaps because in rape culture, a silence is a yes.
“I’m not saying you have to get married unless you want to. But just consider proposals. Okay?”
Say yes, said my brain. You need something from her right now, and this is the only way to get it.
Say no, said my brain. This is fucking psychotic.
I opened my mouth not knowing what I was going to say, and burst into tears. I was fucking inconsolable. I could not fucking stop crying.
“Why are you crying? Is it because you don’t want to get married? Marriage isn’t so bad. Just because other people have had bad marriages doesn’t mean you will.”
Why was I crying? It’s not as if I would ever get pushed into a marriage I don’t want. It’s not as if anyone had that power over me.
So what was it then? Was it the sudden sense of loss that hit me like a truck?
You never forget the day you find out your parents don’t love you. Even after decades have passed, and you never think about all of that anymore. There's always that nagging sense of contempt that rears up when you're talking to them.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to want to do anything for her in return. But there was absolutely nothing I could say at that moment, broken as I was.
“You must start looking at proposals,” she said. “I’ve waited until now to say something about it. But now you're almost done with college. You need another family that can help you. So you mustn’t say no, alright?”
There was silence on my end. She pressed on, perhaps because in rape culture, a silence is a yes.
“I’m not saying you have to get married unless you want to. But just consider proposals. Okay?”
Say yes, said my brain. You need something from her right now, and this is the only way to get it.
Say no, said my brain. This is fucking psychotic.
I opened my mouth not knowing what I was going to say, and burst into tears. I was fucking inconsolable. I could not fucking stop crying.
“Why are you crying? Is it because you don’t want to get married? Marriage isn’t so bad. Just because other people have had bad marriages doesn’t mean you will.”
Why was I crying? It’s not as if I would ever get pushed into a marriage
So what was it then? Was it the sudden sense of loss that hit me like a truck?
You never forget the day you find out your parents don’t love you. Even after decades have passed, and you never think about all of that anymore. There's always that nagging sense of contempt that rears up when you're talking to them.
And being reminded of it means having that wound ripped open all over again. It means feeling alone and meaningless and falling backward into a bottomless, black, hole.
Rape isn’t a crime within marriage, I wanted to say. I spend my life trying to ensure this doesn’t happen to me again, I wanted to say. You want to push me into a cage from inside which I cannot protect myself from rape, I wanted to say.
But I didn’t say those things. I didn’t say a word, except to choke out “I can’t say no, can I?”
Even that should have been a resounding no. But not to the living embodiment of rape culture, no. She concluded the call, happy that she'd achieved the impossible. She'd gotten me to "agree" to looking at proposals.
I never agreed. All I did was cry.
Under Indian law, sex within a marriage cannot be non-consensual. There is no notion of consent whatsoever, because it's a straightforward equation of ownership.
The idea of a woman exercising sexual agency within marriage is alien to us. The idea of a woman exercising sexual agency outside marriage is also alien to us. And the idea of a women exercising agency in deciding whether or not to get married, and to whom, is also alien to us.
Arranged marriage is Indian culture. Arranged marriage is rape culture. There is no extracting these things from each other, no separating them.
By coercing your daughters into a marriage without ever giving them full and absolute freedom of choice, you are perpetrating rape culture. You are telling them they have absolutely no right to their bodies. That whether they say no, or cry, or stay silent, it's still a yes.
And you're teaching your sons the other side of the same coin. That they have absolute rights to the bodies of women around them. That whether those women say no, or cry, or stay silent, it's still a yes.
Rape isn’t a crime within marriage, I wanted to say. I spend my life trying to ensure this doesn’t happen to me again, I wanted to say. You want to push me into a cage from inside which I cannot protect myself from rape, I wanted to say.
But I didn’t say those things. I didn’t say a word, except to choke out “I can’t say no, can I?”
Even that should have been a resounding no. But not to the living embodiment of rape culture, no. She concluded the call, happy that she'd achieved the impossible. She'd gotten me to "agree" to looking at proposals.
I never agreed. All I did was cry.
Under Indian law, sex within a marriage cannot be non-consensual. There is no notion of consent whatsoever, because it's a straightforward equation of ownership.
The idea of a woman exercising sexual agency within marriage is alien to us. The idea of a woman exercising sexual agency outside marriage is also alien to us. And the idea of a women exercising agency in deciding whether or not to get married, and to whom, is also alien to us.
Arranged marriage is Indian culture. Arranged marriage is rape culture. There is no extracting these things from each other, no separating them.
By coercing your daughters into a marriage without ever giving them full and absolute freedom of choice, you are perpetrating rape culture. You are telling them they have absolutely no right to their bodies. That whether they say no, or cry, or stay silent, it's still a yes.
And you're teaching your sons the other side of the same coin. That they have absolute rights to the bodies of women around them. That whether those women say no, or cry, or stay silent, it's still a yes.
Arranged marriage is Indian culture. Arranged marriage is rape culture. Indian culture is rape culture.
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