Sermoy Po Kundu posted on the "Single Status" Facebook group in early January, the news of the rise in the number of single women in India, according to a recent study conducted by the "Bumble" application (Bumble).

The study showed that 81% of unmarried Indian women are happy with the spinsterhood decision, despite family pressure.

Bo Kundu founded the group on Facebook as a community for single women from urban India, whether never married, divorced or widowed, with the aim of reducing stigma against divorcees and widows.

But the closed group soon sparked a feminist debate in a country that sanctifies marriage, and some of its females decided to deviate from the path.

"single and proud"

According to the 2011 census, India was home to 71.4 million unmarried women, up 39% from 2001, and while the 2021 census has been delayed due to the “Covid-19” pandemic, women in the land of spices are circulating news that the number of unmarried Indian women has exceeded 100 million. It is expected that the numbers will continue to increase after the Indian women abandoned their fear of the "shame" of spinsterhood and loneliness.

Those numbers are still minuscule in the second most populous country, but they do pose a threat to the traditions of Indian society.

As two-thirds of India's 1.25 billion people live in the countryside, and follow the tradition of marriage in the family home, a tradition abandoned by wealthy city dwellers, to enjoy their married life, but rural families increasingly adhere to it, so Indian women do not leave their parents' homes, except to live with their husband's families. .

Therefore, the female education rate in India is lower than the global average.

The situation is even more serious in rural areas. In 2019, the Indian Observer Foundation (ORF) for research and statistics revealed that there are still about 186 million women in India who cannot read or write.

93% of marriages in India take place according to the rules of "arranged marriage", so parents choose what is best for their daughter from their point of view (Pixaby)

Marriage in the family home

93% of marriages in India take place according to the rules of “arranged marriage.” Parents choose what is best for their daughter from their point of view. Then, after marriage, the girls move to the husband’s family home, where traditions require the younger wife to serve the husband’s parents, his brothers, and his brothers’ wives, and the mother-in-law controls how Spending the salaries of her male children.

Tradition became an imposition, after a legal ruling institutionalized ancient traditions and turned the lives of millions of Indian women into a nightmare, with slavery-like conditions;

In 2016, the Supreme Court of India ruled a divorce in favor of a husband whose wife refused to live with his family. The ruling stated that Indian women were inspired by Western thought and violated traditional values.

Divorce is a verdict of eternal misery for Indian women.

The woman is not separated from the husband alone, but rather from the traditions of society, the parents who are disgraced for divorcing their daughter, and the relatives and friends who consider the divorced woman and the widow a bad omen, and she is not entitled to happiness or remarry.

This view of the divorced woman left thousands of unhappy wives;

While divorce rates rise annually around the world and women initiate most divorce cases, India records one of the lowest divorce rates, at only 1%.

According to data from the National Family Health Survey 2022 issued by the Indian Ministry of Health, 30% of Indian women have experienced domestic violence (Pixels).

Domestic violence is a family affair

There is no way out for the Indian, who is affected by her marital life, but to emigrate outside the country.

The vast majority live with domestic violence and marital rape - which are not criminalized in India - to protect children from poverty and social exclusion in the event of divorce.

According to the data of the National Survey of Family Health issued in 2022 by the Indian Ministry of Health, 30% of Indian women have experienced domestic violence, while 77% of those who have tried to seek help from the family are disappointed, while the police consider that violence a family matter.

Domestic violence is not the worst-case scenario in a society that sees marriage as a panacea for mental illness.

Indian women account for 36% of global suicides between the ages of 15 and 39, and are 2.5 times more likely to commit suicide, when compared to women in other societies.

This is not new;

More than 20,000 Indian wives commit suicide annually, since 1997, and a 2020 report by the government's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed that wives made up more than 50% of the total number of women who killed themselves in India.

Family problems were the second motive for wives in India to commit suicide, at a rate of 30%, after the dowry, which came in first place, leaving 7,000 victims.

Suicide was recorded as a cause of their death, but they were - in fact - killed, or driven to commit suicide, due to the custom of the bride's family paying a dowry to the groom's family to secure her life after marriage.

The higher the dowry, the better the groom's family treats the bride.

But if the paid dowry decreases, the wife lives under the threat of divorce or under the premonition of suicide at any moment.