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.”
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.