TRAUMA | PAIN | DISCORD
The Indignities of an Arranged Marriage
Fighting for my right to be human
Mine was an arranged marriage, a marriage of convenience.
It is also the lot of many girls and women in India. In one swift stroke, one is transported into a home of total strangers. One is expected to make the best of it, and learn to ‘adjust.’
Sometimes it is a large family, of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers and spouses, all under one roof: the Indian joint family. The newly acquired wife is expected to look after every one of them.
I was lucky, in that respect, I thought, as I flew down to Mumbai, from Kerala. I only had a mother-in-law, a father-in-law, and a sister-in-law. I was rather chuffed about it.
I didn’t know then, what was to unfold.
Sometimes it is a large family, of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers and spouses, all under one roof: the Indian joint family. The newly acquired wife is expected to look after every one of them.
My husband was working in Muscat, and would come down once in a year, for a…
