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Breaking Myths: Divorce, A Taboo

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Since childhood, we were brought up with stories and fables of happy ending and, quotes saying,“And they lived happily ever after..,” or wait, hang on, did they?

For years the common narrative of marriages, being the sole purpose of a woman’s life has been fed and sold to us in the form of romance novels, movies, songs, soap-operas, etc. She must abide by it, even if things go extremely south, since it’s her duty to serve (courtesy: patriarchy of course!)

As per India Today, unsurprisingly, India has the lowest divorce rate, which go as low as being less than one percent, this in a country which has the highest domestic violence and depression rate. In India, one out of every three married women, face domestic abuse, and, yet we have so many happy successful marriages.

Are people really happy or have they forced themselves in wrong relationships just because of the stigma that comes attached with a divorce?

One such example is of Ross Geller from Friends, Ross Geller received  much flak for going through three divorces in the sitcom. Now, imagine, a Rosselin going through three divorces or a Roopa or a Rubiqa. Society seems to develop a very cold exterior when it comes to judging females with history of failed relationships. In this situation, either of the two things happen: Regressive society makes it tough for you to quit marriage, therefore, you find yourself in a spiral of silence or worse, you, yourself endorse the normalcy in a toxic relationship. So how does this normalcy get propagated? It’s a complex work of the culture that is structured around it.The structure includes, triggering Indian soap operas, which apart from popularising superstition also endorse patriarchy on their lavish sets of never ending television series. Just in case, if you think, it’s primitive thinking and the novel millennial mindset which detests Indian soap operas and, the western culture, is way beyond it, then again you might want to reconsider. Calling it quits, is not only stigmatised for marriages but similar patterns are observed in millennial dating as well.

Notion of women being a therapy centre for poorly raised men is very much part of a popular culture even today. After book series, (later turned into a movie) authored by Anna Todd gained handsome popularity because it sold good, chast, pious girl Tessa Young and bad boy Hardin Scott. In yet another famous book It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, readers were left agitated when the protagonist left her abusive husband Ryan for the good guy Atlas. Most readers shipped the toxic relationship that protagonist had with her husband, over the good one.

Prachi Khare, Journalism student, Kamala Nehru College, who is fanatic about American TV drama Grey’s Anatomy, when asked as to why she shipped the toxic relationship of Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd said,”It’s so engaging to watch the vulnerability of characters trying to sustain their relationships.” She further added, “I understand it’s fictional but I find myself like an idiot correlating it with my own life.”

The dangers of such content is that it subconsciously reinforces the wrong relationships, thereby, making adults be in wrong relationships albeit the fact that generational timeline has progressed. Hate to play the devil’s advocate, but the media is based on the preference of people’s taste and, a reflection of the society. Perhaps, we can be more progressive about our choices for structuring an environment which permeates healthy relationships, and is accepting towards the ones, which have failed.

 Feature Image Credits: thedelhiwalla

Umaima Khanam

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Arts & Culture

The Story of Great Indian Divorce

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It doesn’t come as a surprise that India has the lowest divorce rate in the world, which sounds good but isn’t necessarily a good sign.

According to a report, stating the ten most and least divorced nations, India stood at the lowest with a contribution of 1% to the total divorces in the world.

Only 13 marriages out of 1,000 result in divorces in our country, making it even less than 1% which clearly tells us that people here are more comfortable with unhappy marriages rather than a broken marriage. Couples could be living under the same roof but be separated for years, maintaining a thin line between failed marriages and divorces.

The main reason for this atrocity remains societal pressure. People think that they are liable to live according to society’s idea of what counts as a good life, which is basically putting efforts for everybody’s happiness but yours. The need for seeking everyone’s validation has made our decisions restricted and counterproductive.

Furthermore, the concept of arranged marriages completely ignores the needs of the only two people involved. As long as their families are happy, who cares about them? And these are the same families who turn their backs on the couple when they are withstanding marital problems by giving the ultimate solution, “Have a kid, that’ll solve everything”.

Apart from this, there is hardly any concept of remarriage in our society, so a lot of people drop the idea of divorce and incline towards adjusting due to the fear of dying alone rather than having a second chance at love. Because, after somebody gathers all the courage to let go of an unhealthy marriage and start a new life, how dare they consider moving on with someone new?

How many times have we compromised our happiness over the thought of log kya kahenge? This fear is indulged inside us so deeply that we follow the ideology of “Sanskar over happiness” but at what stake?

Staying in failed marriages not only creates life long problems but also promotes the mentality in the future generations that it’s okay to stay with someone you’re not happy with, only giving rise to toxic relationships with a dead end.

We’re long into 2019 and still the Indian society, a society whose utopian dreams has made the younger generation hell-bent on westernising themselves, remains deeply rooted in centuries’ old values. Low divorce rate might look nice and ideal on paper but in practical, it hints at the rigidity in our society. Indian society needs to understand that divorce is not the end of a happy marriage but an escape from a bad marriage. In the end, it results in two happy individuals rather than one miserable couple.

Feature Image Credits: 

Avni Dhawan

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DUB Speak

The Fear Surrounding Arranged Marriages

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The evolution of relationships and the concept of love marriage has led to people fearing arranged marriages. Arranged marriages have now turned into an outdated concept and an un-cool thing. But is it really that frightening?

The concept of falling in love and relationships is not alien to our society. Relationships are quite common and college students are well aware of it. It is great that people are quite open to the concept of falling in love and this has pretty much led to the notion where individuals have started to think that love marriages are the only way one is supposed to get married. But are arrange marriages really that frightening?

India is a country where more than 85% of the marriages are arranged. A report published by Maps of India in 2013 states that the divorce rates in India are as low as 1.2%, in contrary to 53% in the United States of America. This data is also the result of many differences between the two countries and the way marriages are seen, but the difference reflects that there is mutual consent between two people to continue as a married couple.

It is no less than an achievement to see people having love marriages and it is great that people are becoming more receptive towards this concept. But as budding individuals, it is not right on our part to develop a mentality where we start opposing arranged marriages as a possibility. There are some legitimate lines on which arranged marriages are questioned. When asked about an opinion on arranged marriages, Shreya Singhal, a student of the University of Delhi said “I feel that arranged marriages are ridiculous. How can we expect two random individuals to live together for the rest of their lives?”

The concept of arranged marriages has been working since a long time, and to question it is to refute the many success stories of the prevailing generation of parents whose marriages were arranged when they were young. Something must be going right to make these marriages work. We are at an interesting phase where we can witness both kinds of marriages. We as burgeoning individuals should learn how these differing kinds of marriages work and figure out what’s best for us.

The other “problem” with arranged marriages is that it is seen as an outdated notion and people associate the preference of an arranged marriage with being conventional. In a report published by Medium in 2016, 75.4% women prefer having arranged marriages. The number is lower than the previous statistics but it still signifies that a large chunk of women are still affirmative towards the concept.

The idea of the piece and all the statistics is to not be conclusive about what is happening with both kinds of marriages. We are in a transitional phase where love marriages are becoming more and more socially acceptable which is a great sign of progress in the mentality of the society. But at the same time, opposing arranged marriages and being judgmental about it is not the way to go.

 

Feature Image Credits: Identity Magazine

Karan Singhania

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Daulat Ram College

Daulat Ram College organises Intra-College Debate on obsolescence of marriage

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The newly elected union of the debating society of Daulat Ram College with its members organised the first debating event of the year, the Intra-College Conventional Debate 2015 on the 26th of September. The motion at hand was “This house believes that marriage is an outdated institution.”

The total number of teams that participated was 14. The judges of the event were Dr. Seema Rani, a teacher from the Hindi department of the college, Ms. Abhipsa Chakraborty, from the English department and Ms. Megha, a graduate of DRC and currently pursuing M.A from Delhi University.

The event kicked off with the felicitation of the convenor of the society and the judges by presenting them bouquets. Then a general introduction of the debating society was given and soon the waiting participants were called on stage to present their debates. As the topic is quite controversial, there wasn’t any dull moment throughout the event.

As the topic is quite controversial, there wasn’t any dull moment throughout the event. It was interesting to get such different perspectives of the students for both, for and against the motion. The few debates that were presented to affirm the motion were strains of patriarchy seen in such an institution, no more than a regressive idea, no space to acknowledge LGBT rights or a homosexual union. Also, live-in relationships were proposed as an alternative because they’re hassle-free. These arguments were refuted by points such as marriage being a stable environment for the development of the kids; people sustaining faith in marriage even after divorce; if the sanctity is nullified then why is the world seeking approval of same-sex marriage; live-in relationships seen just as an excuse to not bear responsibilities and so on.

After the participants had spoken, there was also a small ceremony where the union members were presented with badges of their respective posts by the teachers-in-charge to formally mark their advent in the society. Then, the judges addressed the audience and told them how it’s an endless debate and there will always be two sides to a coin but they are also happy that the students of Delhi University are doing justice to its standards are well-aware and open enough to debate on such topics.  The winners were announced as follows: Akansha Sharma and Aparajita Talwar both of final year, Political Science (H) as the best team of the event, Nisha, 3rd year, Political Science (H) as the Best Speaker (For), Himadri Bhatt, 2nd year, Political Science (H) as the Best Speaker (Against) and Arunima, 1st year, Political Science (H) as the Best Interjector of the event.

“It was great to see such an exceptional participation from students considering it was our society’s first intra-college event. We deliberately kept a topic which every student could relate to. And, seeing it execute well encourages us to organise more such events in the future”, said Disha Singh, president, Debating Society of DRC, after pulling-off the event successfully with the help of her team.

Nishita Agarwal

[email protected]

Image Credits: Aakriti Jindal

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