BENGALURU: When 21 year old Sushma’s widowed mother began forcing her to marry a man 16 years her senior, she fled her home town and came to Bengaluru. Here, she found work in a Café Coffee Day. When her mother finally tracked her down, the two visited the Vanita Sahayavani centre in the City police Commissionerate.
“It was unheard of for a girl in their village to leave home and come and work in the city.
Sushma wanted to be able to stand on her own feet before she got married. She had certain expectations of her husband, which the man her mother had chosen for her did not meet. She didn’t want to marry someone who was sixteen years older to her even though he was ‘well settled’,” Rani Shetty, coordinator of Vanita Sahayavani said. “Her mother, on the other hand felt burdened by the ‘responsibility’ of getting her daughter married, considering that she was growing old and her husband had passed away earlier.”
Although a major chunk of cases dealt with by Vanita Sahayavani are problems faced by married women, over the last three years, the number of unmarried women who approach the Sahayavani has doubled. Keeping this in mind, the Sahayavani has begun counselling for single women and men ahead of getting married.
“Although it forms a small percentage of the total number cases that the Sahayavani deals with, there is an increase in the numbers and we felt then need to ensure that single women and parents had some help in the form of counselling available,” Shetty said.
According to Shetty, a majority of cases stem from the generational gap between parents and children. But number of cases are the result of a fear of marriage.
“There are youngsters who do not want to get married because someone in their family has had a traumatic experience when it comes to marriage. One girl didn’t want to get married because her elder sister had committed suicide after marriage because of dowry harassment. Another boy, despite seeing numerous girls for marriage, said no to marriage simply because he was afraid,” Shetty said.
Because of the increasing divorce rates, it is imperative that people marry for the right reasons. “If the reason for getting married is because of parental pressure, chances are the marriage will fail. We try to explain this to the parents. It is important that the youngster is able to stand on his/her own feet before being asked to marry. Often, youngsters are unable to explain this to parents and parents are unable to explain their concerns to the children. This is where we come in,” she said.
Pre-marital counselling will be held thrice a week (Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday).