Ever since I started addressing my boyfriend of 8 years as my husband, after an elaborate 5-day wedding ceremony, I have been experiencing the pressing need to decipher the so-called wedding traditions that only the girl and her side of the family is expected to follow with scrupulous attention as if it’s written on the pages of our great Indian Constitution.
To begin with, I was unable to (and still am) wrap my head around the tradition which says the wedding expenses are to be borne by only the bride’s family. This rule, which is written on an invisible rock, is wrong on levels beyond measure.
This translates to a situation (of course hypothetical) where only the girl walks away with the hefty lottery post-wedding, leaving the husband and his family poor. So in order to cover up that loss, the girl and her family should burn their pockets for this wedding.
Following the wedding expenses come the wedding gifts along with dowry to the groom and his family. The greater the number of costly gifts, the greater the level of submissiveness and efforts of the girl’s family to make the groom and his family happy and dance with joy. I don’t know which universe wrote this rule on a rock, but I hope a black hole gulps it.
These are the rules that my boyfriend and I heard. Every Tom, Dick and Harry told us to follow them unquestioned, which we did not. We are two educated, self-reliant, self-sufficient human beings who simply decided to enjoy the entire event peacefully on simple financial terms—shun the dowry, share the expenses and gift where necessary and out of love.
While this did ruffle the feathers of a few inquisitive relatives from both ends, it did not bother us because we know we are right. Both our parents understood on what note we wanted to promote our relation to the next level and, hence, had no issues whatsoever.
I did not jot this to brag, but I want to shout at the top of my voice that this should be the norm because we are educated and have enough knowledge to sanitise the wedding scene from this deadly virus.
What’s concerning here is how Gen-Z youth is still following these senseless rituals. So my sincere request to every girl out there is to please put your damn close-to-20-years of education to use, raise your voice, question the age-old senseless rules.
Before you post that Instagram post glorifying your husband just after a day of your wedding and explaining how he suddenly brought meaning and worth to your otherwise useless life (that’s how some of us make it look like in the description as if their parents did not do enough till that point to make them feel loved and worthy just like their husband of 2–3 days old did), see if he is doing enough from the start of the relation to command the organic-honey coated praise you shower on him in your gram’s caption.
I urge the guys to stop blaming the traditions. Unlearn whatever is irrelevant to the current time. Stop saying that it’s all on mom and dad. It won’t take ages to put out your point if you believe and wish to change the now norm into a thing of yore. Be the man who lifts this unwarranted weight off of the girl and her family and walk into the wedding with love, care and concern.
I know things will not change at the drop of a hat, but a simple question, irrespective of the tone, can go a long way in the process of a much delayed but wanted change in the Indian wedding grammar.