The Patriarchal Aspects of Hindu Wedding Ceremonies

Words by Rohini Gajaraj

Welcome to the Brown History Newsletter. If you’re enjoying this labour of love, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your contribution would help pay the writers and illustrators and support this weekly publication. If you like to submit a writing piece, please send me a pitch by email at brownhistory1947@gmail.com. Check out our Shop and our Podcast. You can also follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

The Patriarchal Aspects of Hindu Wedding Ceremonies by Rohini Gajaraj

We’ve come a long way from dowries and women being solely seen as property, but patriarchal notions are still so pervasive in heterosexual Hindu wedding ceremonies. As someone who is thinking about Hindu wedding ceremonies and what I like and dislike about some of the traditions in general, figuring out how to modernize something seemingly steeped in patriarchy, while maintaining its beauty and history, has been on my mind. Luckily, more and more people, both within Hinduism and outside of it, want to move past the patriarchal aspects of marriage and marriage ceremonies and create new and progressive traditions. But to do so, we must understand why there is such a need for change. According to professor and author Dr. Preeti S. Rawat, during the Vedic and Epic periods of ancient India, women and men were on a whole treated equally. However, it was only after this period were there restrictions on women’s sexuality and mobility. Further, the role of women was quite limited to that of a faithful wife or devout mother. Without diving too much into the Vedas and scriptures that may represent an even more outdated sentiment to marriage and its purpose, or delving into why we even need marriage ceremonies in the first place, the collective notions of Hindu marriage ceremonies revolve around the groom and his family. Although many aspects of the ceremony focus on the woman, we have to look more deeply into what that focus means. 

Hindu wedding ceremonies certainly do not hold a monopoly on the concept of “giving the bride away,” but a significant part of the ceremony revolves around this. This is exemplified in the kanyadaan portion of the ceremony where the bride’s parents “give her to the groom and his family” by placing the bride’s hand on the groom’s hand during prayer. Women are not property nor something to be “given away,” and this idea makes it feel as if the woman is now the sole responsibility or issue of the husband and his family. What's more, there is no reciprocal ceremony in which the groom’s family gives him to the bride’s family. A mutual ceremony where both parents give their children away to each other would make much more sense. But these familial and gender roles date back centuries and have their roots in ancient ideas about the value of men and women. While these ideas have somewhat evolved, the practices, although they may seem insignificant or just for show, need to evolve as well.