Marriage Rituals - Study by a Novice / Araivekkadu

Long back, when I was reading Cho’s Enge Brahmanan, the explanations which he gave for kalyana mantrams sounded too male chauvinistic, that I wanted to peep into that section of Veda myself, to get a first hand information. But I never felt like digging deep and left it as such. Now that I will be indulging myself into one such process shortly, I dusted back that old desire and initiated learning the marriage rituals. Marriage rituals are explained in this link by Ramanan. (The source which I read was different and a very mild controversy may exist) The motive of this post is not to explain marriage ritual, but to analyze the status given to women in these rituals.

BG – Bride Groom

Mostly, BG utters all mantras through out the process and the mantras he utters can be classified broadly under these headings:

To burn/destroy unwanted and bad qualities of bride
to remove possible diseases of bride (in nugathadi ritual)
promises which he makes and making clear his expectations (sapthapathy)
Mantras uttered during Grahapravesam

The very first ritual of wedding starts with a controversy. Bride’s father washing the feet of BG. I tried a lot to find a convincing logic for it. But in all vain. Assuming BG as incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the father in law to be does this ritual. All this Vishnu stuff seemed a clear muffing up for me and the motive can be just to announce BG as the supreme guest of the function.

The next ceremony, wherein, supposedly, BG and G are to see eye to eye for the first time, BG feels the terrible fear of possible bad qualities in her which can affect his family and close relatives. He prays to God, to burn those qualities in his bride, which can kill him, his siblings and his future progenies. The next ritual which follows is nugathadi one. That is, BG placing wooden yoke in B’s head and praying God to remove all known and unknown diseases within her. (It is misinterpreted otherwise to mean that couples are wished to go ahead in their life, just as oxen tied in yoke, sharing equal responsibility with good understanding. But it represents a different story involving Aapala, where in Indra removes her off all diseases by making her go through the hole in wooden yoke of his chariot.)

The above two processes seems completely sensible because, before accepting a new person as one’s life partner, the apprehensions which one senses about the other are normal. Hence praying to God to get rid of bad qualities and diseases is nothing illogical. It would have been perfectly right and unbiased, if only Bride is also given an equal chance to pray to Almighty to remove, destroy and burn all those qualities in her bridegroom, which can kill her, to remove all those known/unknown diseases in him.

Miserably, Bride is forced to believe that the person she is going to marry is perfectly sane, well within his senses when he makes his promises. She is denied of her rights to doubt the bride groom of his bad qualities. She is denied of her rights to doubt his promises and pray Almighty to remove those qualities in him which can destroy her and her progeny.

Next comes sapthapathy ritual. Here BG offers great promises and just demands two things from his wife. He wants her to be his loyal follower who can give him healthy male progenies.

As I was losing my cool when I read this praying for male child stuff, my mother came out with a nice explanation for why gender makes a difference. Probably because, woman, as she embraces the gothram of her husband, do not carry any values of her paternal home and only a male progeny carry the values and can be a true heir of his father. That sounds logical.

But making her lose her individuality, and asking her to become a follower is an injustice, to thrust slavery in her.

Though in reality, hardly the couple understands meaning of these mantras, the fact that women are looked down hurts. Vedas, considered as uttered by Devas and sensed by great saints, should not be bound by time for its validity. Hence we cannot cover-up saying that it suited perfectly in those days when women were under privileged. If it is bound by time, it requires revision. If it requires revision, it needs human interruption. If human interruption is warranted, it loses its divinity. Is there any meaning in following something which has lost its divinity? But this questioning won’t help and it has to be undergone.

Warning I: Whatever I have concluded is with my zero knowledge in Sanskrit, just relying on translated version. Novice readers with little knowledge about these can better consult with some reliable scholar before jumping into conclusions.

Warning II: This post of mine is a genuine attempt to analyze and understand Hindu customs. A non Hindu/ non believer cannot misuse it to abuse my religion. This is a closed post meant only for Hindus.