The way we wed: how Indian brides are reinventing ceremonies to push for gender equality
- Bollywood celebrities have dropped practices that are archaic, while in rural parts of the country, women are fighting back against child marriages
- Modern brides are doing away with practices such as looking sad as they leave their families, and changing their surnames after marriage
Priya Aggarwal, a law graduate in the northern city of Ambala, made the news earlier this year when she reversed tradition by riding a horse, sword in hand, to her groom’s place to marry him – usually the man’s role. In 2017, Amisha Bharadwaj’s wedding video went viral because she’d danced in her bridal blouse and shorts to Sia’s popular hit Cheap Thrills.
“My video broke the stereotype of the shy Indian bride, who is not supposed to dance, and definitely not wear the kind of clothes I was wearing,” she told BBC news. “The script for the Indian bride has been the same for ages – she is supposed to be shy, not laugh and smile sporadically, and cry while leaving her parents’ house. But now the modern Indian bride is writing her own script.”
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In patriarchal India, weddings have always emphasised men’s dominion over women, with rituals and ceremonies that extend to having the bride’s parents washing the groom’s feet, the bride touching the groom’s feet, and the girl’s father “giving away” his daughter, in kanyadaan, to the groom and his family, as if she were a possession.
Recently, more Indian women have sought to express gender equality at their weddings.
Parthip Thiagarajan, who runs Wedding Sutra, an online platform offering comprehensive wedding information, said that in many Indian families, parents and elders still decide on rituals.
He pointed out: “Many brides and grooms who have held strong views about misogynistic rituals and want to either do away with them or change their form, talk to their parents and in-laws beforehand to bring them on board.
“Many brides are unsuccessful in this if they want to change things after the engagement, as traditions are important in the Indian context and it’s hard to win over the elders.”
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At a deeper level, they want these changes to reflect their role in a marriage.
“Generally it’s only the Indian women who wear the marks of being married from a mangalsutra (a necklace) to sindoor (vermilion),” said Shruti Singh, an advertising professional in Bangalore. So she opted for an exchange of rings to signify a union of equals.
Shruti Kumar, a software engineer in Bangalore, kept her surname after she wed, saying “my name is so much part of my identity and also the way my friends and family as well as people at work know me. I wanted to retain it.”
Meanwhile, Gurugram-based Avanee Kapoor, a HR professional who wanted a progressive wedding, dropped outdated or sexist vows, including “the women will not step out of the house without her husband’s permission”.
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She and her fiancé had a signing ceremony and kept the celebration, but they tweaked functions such as the milni – where the men on the bride’s side generally welcome the men on the groom’s side with gifts. “We cut out the gifts and involved everyone, including the women. We also shared the costs of the wedding equally,” she said.
Medha Khanna, a chartered accountant based in Mumbai, based her marriage to her long-time boyfriend Akshay on their common values.
After extensive research into Hindu wedding rituals, the pair chose to be married by two female priests, and did away with the kanyadaan and vidaai.
“We said our vows not in Sanskrit, but in English, a language we could relate to and everyone would understand,” she said.
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Bollywood star power is pushing back too. Actress Katrina Kaif had her sisters – instead of the customary brothers of the bride – hold up the “veil of flowers” over her.
Meanwhile, actor Dia Mirza ditched ostentatious displays for a simple event with sustainable wedding decor, and had a female priestess instead of a priest.
Priyanka Chopra at her wedding to Nick Jonas, had her mother walk her down the aisle, breaking the custom of a father or a male member of the family doing so. In a modern twist to traditional wedding rituals, actor Rajkummar Rao asked his wife Patrelekhaa to apply sindoor to his forehead (instead of the other way around) during their wedding.
Though an emotional high point in north Indian weddings, the vidaai too is being reinvented. Where brides usually bid a teary adieu as they leave with their new husbands, celebrity brides like Anushka Sharma and Sonam Kapoor refused to cry, while Diya Mirza did away with vidaai altogether.
Trends have spread beyond urban centres.
In a country with the highest number of child brides, Rajni Devi, 21, stopped five child marriages including her own. She now leads a self-help and empowerment group in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh.
Anusha Ravi, an NGO worker in Delhi, said these cases are only small specks in the larger firmament of Indian weddings as demand for dowry and insistence on age-old rituals are still rampant.
“For Indian society to really change will take decades, but it is still a good sign that many women are trying hard to fight misogyny and gender inequality in weddings.”
