Runaway marriages for girls are a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea
A 17-year old girl abandoned her family and came to Chandigarh, from a small village of Kaithal district, Haryana and was waiting for her boyfriend to turn up, at the Punjab and Haryana High Court premises. Every day around 25 couples come here to seek police protection after eloping from their native villages and small towns to marry, but only few marriages last.
In the usual din of black and white, one can easily spot young men and women, in their colourful attire waiting anxiously for their lawyers. However, Kiran was alone and with the passage of time her patience was giving up. A glint of hope twinkled in her deep brown eyes as her cell phone buzzed, but it turned up in hopelessness. “I don’t know what to do,” she said as the clerk of the lawyer she had hired, told her that this was the last call from the judge and if your boyfriend doesn’t appear, after lunch, the case will be disposed off.
It was a year back that Kiran started courtship with her boyfriend Sunny after she passed her high school examinations. With two son in the household, Kiran’s father, a Government clerk, decided to put-on-hold her education, as he found it unnecessary to educate her further. Everyone in the family backed his decision. Her mother, who works at the panchayat office, also agreed and wanted her daughter to concentrate on household chores, which she considered important to get her married.
“It is a very common practice in the rural areas,”say Dr Rajesh Gill, Professor of Sociology at the Panjab University. She adds, things are changing slowly, but in most of the houses the girls are not educated beyond a certain level. There are myriad reasons behind it. One of the primary causes is dowry. The parents think it to be wastage of money to teach a girl as after wedding she has to leave the household and the money spent on her education could be saved for the dowry, says Gill.
When both the parents left for work, the lonely child found Sunny, someone on whom she could confide. He used to come to her house for cleaning the cow shed and it is here they tasted the forbidden fruit few months back. After Kiran missed few of her periods, she was alarmed. later on with the help of a cousin she visited a doctor in Kaithal, where her pregnancy was confirmed. After getting the news Sunny was perturbed, but he asked her to remain quite and promised of marriage.
After planning elaborately, Sunny with one of his friends decided that the nuptial knot will be tied at an Arya Samaj Mandir in Rohtak, where later they can even terminate the pregnancy. The news was delivered to Kiran. However, the plan failed because Kiran was a minor and the Temple outrightly rejected their plan to solemnise the marriage.
On their way back, Sunny’s friend asked for sexual favours from Kiran, a condition that he levied for staying silent over the whole matter. It was then that the lovebirds decided to flee the village and approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court for protection, about which they read in a local newspaper.
Kiran is not the only one; there are many girls who share the same fate say Rita Kohli, Senior Advocate, Punjab and Haryana High Court. She adds, Punjab and Haryana are the States dominated by patriarchal society where marriage norms are guided by the rules of caste endogamy and gotra exogamy where couple belonging to the same village is not considered being marriageable.
Anything beside this, failing the marital rule is considered to be a sin and in turn the couples are either ostracised or in many cases killed, which has been termed as honour killing. However, there is also a tussle when a girl from an economically affluent society marries a boy of lower economical strata and vice-versa. The stigma attached to such marriages is very strong. last year in July, two girls committed suicide at Nari Niketan, a shelter home situated in Karnal. The girls were sent here after a courts’ order which termed their marriage illegal as they were minors and the parents refused taking their custody.
Even death failed to reunite the family. After the parents’ refusal to claim the bodies, formalities were done and the cremation was done by the Deputy Commissioners’ office.
“The problem is deep-rooted and education plays a big factor,” says Atul lakhan Pal, Senior Advocate, Punjab and Haryana High Court. “I have handled such cases, where runaway couples come to the Punjab and Haryana High Court to seek protection”. In the course of my practice, one thing that I have noticed is that the shelf-life of such a marriage is shortlived. Most people who abandon the families don’t understand that marriage is an alliance which involves the family too.
On the other-hand the neglect meted out by the parents in the upbringing, of the girls and the lack of awareness among them about the nuances of life results into such problems. Estimates of runaway couples vary widely, as no data is available, from 2,000 to 3,000 annually. However, it is the girl who is at the receiving end if the marriage fails.
“In many cases, the parents want their girl back. Sometimes the girl even abandons the groom because he is not able to bear the expenses of the marriage, to go back home with their parents. A rough estimate would show that only 10 per cent of the marriages are successful, rest ends in despair,” said Rita Kohli. Kohli has been working at the mediation centre of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, settling property and matrimonial issues, since its inception in 2008.
“I have also witnessed cases where girls as young as 13 years of age, elope from their house with boys who have little or no source of income. In such cases it is very hard to convince the couples as they are smitten by their puppy love which defies all logic. However, most of the time the parents agree to accept the girl back but there are few instances when there is rejection and a chance where the couple might be killed to protect the families honour”, she told.
For Kiran also it was a choice between the devil and the deep sea. Sunny never turned up and she was left alone in an unknown city. As the sky was turning deep red, due to the setting sun, all hopes were faltering for her. Going back to Sunny was not an option and going back home might just land her in more trouble.
“Girls have always been victimised in this region of the country”, said Rajesh Gill. “They are seen as property or commodity and the honour of the family is attached to her virginity. Adolescent is a very fragile stage for a girl. At this age they need a lot of care and should have good company. But in rural areas of both Punjab and Haryana, they are seen as a burden, and hence, their emotions are often neglected,” Rajesh said.
In a study done by the Panjab University Sociology department, it has been ascertained that even the menstrual age of the girls are coming down because with the advent of technology, exposure to sex and sexually explicit material has increased. The parents are not educated enough to cater to the emotional needs of the child in a rapidly changing social milieu. Dr Al Sharda of laadli, an NGO working for the empowerment of women says, that knowledge is the first tool to curb evil from the society. Sex education is a first step towards ensuring it.
She said, “It is not possible to curb attraction towards the opposite sex from the society, but educating the girl child will only ensure safety. The condition of girls are worsening by the day, and with a skewed sex ratio, abandonment of girl during their reproductive age will only add to the problem of northern India. It is time that steps are taken to ensure, safety, security and sanctity of a girl child by properly educating her”.
Kiran was lucky. With the help of her lawyer she was sent to a shelter home run by a NGO in Chandigarh, but the pain of loosing both her love and family still lingers around her. As expected, her family severed all ties with her but what came as a brute shock was when she came to know that, Sunny was already married and had two children, a news which devastated her.
Both in Punjab and Haryana, there are many shelter homes which house girls who have been cheated and later abandoned by their parents. The Government shelter homes are called Nari Niketans, and as expected are in deplorable conditions. There also have been many news paper reports about exploitation of girl inmates in such shelter homes, prominent among them being the Apna Ghar shelter home incident. As Gill puts it, “Time has come we start treating women as human beings and reciprocate to their needs as a society”.
(Name of the girl has been changed to protect identity)