How Varun Dhawan & Janhvi Kapoor Bawaal shows that women are steering marriages the way men once did

As Nitesh Tiwari’s latest film Bawaal­­––about the disenchantment of a small-town guy who marries a girl only because her beauty will increase his ‘image’ in society––begins streaming on Amazon Prime, the viral ‘confession’ of an unidentified and sourceless 29-year-old woman stating what she seeks in men for marriage, has raised eyebrows among the nation’s patriarchal men and women. Amidst all this brouhaha, let’s unpack what’s really going on behind the trending words of this month––arranged marriage.

By definition an arranged marriage is an ‘arrangement’. Both parties state their requirements and wed when these requirements––60% according to Sima Aunty––are met. Men seek beauty and women seek security. Potential partners accordingly qualify or disqualify. After ensuring that caste, kundalis and status match, the prospective bride and groom get reduced to a set of attributes. Men are reduced to providers; women are reduced to nurturers. We all know this. Arranged marriages are a transaction. A business dealing. Love has nothing, or very little, to do with it, at least till the wedding. So, what’s the problem with it now?

The problem is the criteria list. Men are usually judged for their financial prowess. Therefore, men disclose their salaries and expect to be picked accordingly. Sounds dehumanising? It sure is. But ––wait for it. Since the invention of the institution, men in the arranged marriage market make their list for girls based not only on the girl’s financial prowess i.e. expected dowry and/or salary, but also on the girl’s age, weight, virginity, skin colour, caste, status, religion, personality, demeanour, eating habits, friends, clothes, education and job. Phew! Women are scrutinized like commodities from head to toe, past to present, back to front. A woman is expected to meet *all* these criteria, and not just the one criterion that men face! So, while both men and women are judged based on a list of demands, the list is endless for only one gender! The gender that’s assumed to be weaker. Therein lies the patriarchy.

Worse still, in many households, even today, women are told not to earn, or to give up their job, so they can stay at home, reproduce, house keep and look after the guy’s parents for no payment. Yet, a woman is shamed for taking a prospective groom’s salary into consideration. Should we not be blaming ourselves for this menace, and not women?

Men are the ones that created this judgemental list. Men are the ones that galvanised this degrading marriage criteria. It’s just that we’re accustomed to seeing women judged for who they are, what they are, how they are and what they represent, whereas men have only been judged for what they represent.

Since this is more or less how arranged marriages work in India, why are people up in arms now? What is the straw breaking the camel’s back? Is it because women are finally making their own lists? Is it because the lists are growing longer? Is it that women stating their choices, laying out their preferences, and exercising their rights is objectionable? Is it the virtue signalling that women will no longer ‘adjust’ or ‘compromise’, a man’s domain for generations? Or is the fact that marriage today is a mutual convenience and not just a man’s convenience, making women empowered enough to ask and get what they demand?

When the shoe is on the other foot, it pinches, doesn’t it? Women have been evaluated and chosen for centuries, why can’t they have a go at it now?       I remember going through a ‘Miss Da Bus’ phase in my early 30s due to which my mother signed me onto a matrimonial site. I was assigned a relationship manager––RM, you read that right! ––to whom I had to pay a huge amount. I assuaged myself saying you can’t just sit around watching Netflix and expect your soulmate to jump in through a window. You have to make love happen, right?

The RM informed me that the key to snagging ‘Da One’ desirable desi husband was to ‘pretend’ to be a virtuous bhartiya nari. This meant stripping my profile of all individuality and steeping it with generalizations. I was told to remove unmentionables––such as ‘ambitious’, ‘outgoing’, ‘well-educated’ and ‘independent’––which by way of being my innate qualities, were obviously traits that men didn’t find endearing. Admitting to eating meat was equivalent to confessing to drinking or smoking or cannibalism. My profile had to be steeped in non-confrontational words like ‘caring’, ‘homely’, ‘fair’, ‘vegetarian’ and ‘convent-educated’ i.e. virgin­­––all of which were highly valued possessions. The RM then told me to fill out my ‘Partner Expectations’. This included ‘Religious Preferences’, ‘Dietary Demands’ and, yes, ‘Salary Expectations’. All this felt incredibly Kafkaesque to my righteous liberal bosom, so I heaved myself out of the arranged marriage market forever, and took my badam-size ego back to the inanities of seeking true love et al.

The truth is that you can’t minimise a woman’s lived experience through patriarchy, when you haven’t lived as a woman under patriarchy. I’ve also always maintained that feminism is not about women vs men, but women and men vs a system that has been unjust to both genders i.e. patriarchy.

For example, a woman I know married a man from the US because she wanted a green card. A man I know rejected an amazing, brilliant woman because she was not conventionally attractive. A woman I know earns but keeps her salary to herself. A man I know refuses to admit that his wife is the family’s sole earning member as he’s an ‘entrepreneur’ who has earned nothing since they’ve been married. The fact is that rights come with responsibilities, for both genders. It is not fair to ask a man to be the sole provider if the woman does not want to be the sole nurturer, just as it’s not fair to assume patriarchal roles for either gender in a world that is slowly dismantling misogyny.

The key is not that men and women shouldn’t communicate their preferences in a life partner. The key is that these preferences should be communicated and comprehended. They should be respectful and reasonable. No one can be everything to everyone all at once.

You want a woman to not judge you by your salary, marry a working woman. You want a man who provides, tell him you’ll look after his home and hearth. You want to be treated as a human being and not a commodity? Extend the same courtesy to your potential partners. You don’t want to be reduced to your salary or your looks? Work on yourself to be a better human being and, therefore, a better spouse. Don’t dismiss the institution when you should be dismissing the people conditioned by it.

Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning and bestselling author, screenwriter, columnist and speaker, whose latest novel BOYS DON’T CRY (Penguin Random House) will soon be seen on screen.