Another story of women having no say in India

[Apocalypse]

Indian groom too drunk to wed, so brother steps in
Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:57AM BST

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said on Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

"The groom apologised for his behaviour, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

[Arrian]

[LordShiva]

Aneeshm, I told you to stay off the bottle for at least a week before your wedding

[Ming]

Classic stuff... show up for your brothers wedding, and end up being the groom. AND EVERYBODY GOES ALONG WITH IT AND NOBODY HAS A PROBLEM WITH IT...



It must suck to be a woman in India.

[Arrian]

It was the bride's family's idea!

How's that for an arranged marriage?

-Arrian

[snoopy369]

How do you know she's not okay with it? If the groom was a drunk perhaps she prefers the younger brother

[aneeshm]

I know that I shouldn't be so insensitive as to laugh at this, but I just can't stop!



Funnily enough, all this would be impermissible under Kautilyan law. The real irony here is that this is happening in the city of Kautilya himself.

[Harovan]

Well, she got somebody off the same family who a) is younger and b) drinks less. Doesn't sound like a bad deal for the bride.

Still

[aneeshm]

Anyway - India is vast, and diverse. This made the news precisely because it was considered freaky enough that we in India thought that it was newsworthy, too. Freaky stuff like this keeps happening, there's not much you can do except wait for progress to catch up, and use other means to mitigate things for now.

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph, that had occurred to me: at least she dodged the drunk. Fewer beatings that way, probably.

Aneesh - of course. Definitely newsworthy.

-Arrian

[Apocalypse]

I thought this was a regular occurrence
One time on Sidgames OT, we had someone spam something against Pakistan asking for money regarding womens' rights. People brought up plenty of instances of India being just as bad if not worse.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

I thought this was a regular occurrence

What the hell?

You actually thought this was normal?

[Ben Kenobi]

Sure.

If a bride didn't like the husband and he showed up at the wedding too drunk I think most brides would tell the husband to buzz off.

That's so disrespectful to her and her family.

[Arrian]

Um, Ben, that's not the funny part...

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Sure.

If a bride didn't like the husband and he showed up at the wedding too drunk I think most brides would tell the husband to buzz off.

She most probably isn't even educated, just like everyone else involved in the wedding. What do you expect?

The concept of the bride or the groom saying "No" to their families when they tell them to get married is unheard of in some backwaters. Bihari villages are prime examples of such areas. In fact, Bihar is the sort of "bad example" to other states. Everyone uses it as a standard reference for what not to be.

I know because people in Pune have become distrustful of student tenants after some bunches of Bihari students ruined the image of students coming from outside the state. I myself had difficulty getting a place to stay.





Of course, in the social circles in which I move, and have been born and brought up, this sort of thing would be completely unthinkable. The girls I know and who I count among my friends don't take any crap from anyone.

Here's to them