“The wording in the judgment seems odd, but it’s a way of addressing the larger issue of rights of persons over one another when they are in such unions,” said Urvashi Butalia, a feminist writer and founder of Zubaan, a nonprofit publishing house.
“I think that the statement that couples who have sexual relations are to be considered married is a bit absurd,” she said. “It brings in a morality that should not be there.”...
[H]aving sex before marriage is still widely condemned in India. Last year, a Delhi High Court judge, as he imposed a jail sentence on a woman convicted of killing her live-in boyfriend, described such relations as a “fad” and an “infamous Western cultural product.”
June 20, 2013
"If any couple chooses to consummate their sexual cravings, then..."
"... that act becomes a total commitment with adherence to all consequences that may follow, except on certain exceptional considerations," said the judge.
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So, if a man claims to have bedded the daughter of a very wealthy man, they are suddenly married?
Similarly, can a woman just claim that she's slept with some gazillionaire to become that man's wife?
How do they prove two people have had intercourse?
Everybody should watch a Bollywood film. I suggest starting with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The acting isn't believable at all, but the dancing is fantastic. And unlike art films from India, you really get a sense of what Indians like to watch. You get a sense of how conservative the culture is, but also there's a lot of happiness and love in their society, too. Really upbeat work of art. And they're influenced by the USA, too, so they have western dress and 80's hair. It's like a Twilight Zone version of the Brady Bunch on LSD, with dancing. I really can't sum it up with words. Bollywood is unlike anything you've seen in your life.
Also, for years and years and years, there was no kissing in a Bollywood movie. Kissing was not allowed. But there's so much passion and emotion in their art! And it was sweet, how their movies are focused on love and marriage.
Definitely a conservative culture. Most of the world is conservative compared to us. I haven't seen 99% of the world, but I've seen art from a lot of places, which at least gives you a peek.
I dunno. A lot of times it's just "love 'em and leave 'em".
Before formal rituals, yeah why not. If he was good enough for sex, then why not love. If you don't love him, why have sex?
Morality as in expectations of responsible behavior? I guess I'm for it. Sounds exotic.
A more eloquent version of, "Marry in haste, repent at leisure".
[H]aving sex before marriage is still widely condemned in India.
*Women* having sex before marriage is widely condemned. Men visiting prostitutes is "condemned" in the sense that masturbation is condemned in the West -- i.e., you're not supposed to talk about it, and technically it is a sin, but it is an open secret that most men do it.
@saint Croix,
There was an Indian dive in Arlington that me & the Mrs used to go to that would show excerpts from Bollywood movies, so I've seen quite a bit. You're right the dance scenes are incredible.
I've got two questions, however:
1) How do the female singers sing in that high, nasal, practically falsetto? The guys are mostly light tenors, but the chix are from another vocal world entirely.
2) Ever notice how light-skinned all the actors are? Clearly, no southern Indians need apply....
I am married to a dothead and have seen every fricking Bollywood movie.
I have stayed in India too. Enormous disparities between rich and poor. The caste systems is very strong. My hubby comes from upper crust, natch. Both his parents were Math professors in UK.
We actually recently seen English Minglish which isn't as "Bollywood" as most Bollywood movies. I can't recall any dancing. The main actress is his fave. It is a story about a married woman in India who doesn't know English which is a major faux pas and her kids and husband belittle her.
She comes to NYC because a relative is marrying a whitey (ahead of her family) and takes English class from a fag who teach immigrants how to speak english. He ends up being boyfriends with the African who also ends up being gay.
My fave Bollywood movie is still Monsoon Wedding. The color is fab. The music in many Bolllywood movies is this combination of Indian and techno-it's a trip.
Because it is conservative you don't leave the house until you get married. It's weird because some of their huge star,s who make millions, but aren't married, still live at home.
Many in Indian hated Slumdog (which isn't really Bollywood except for the ending dance scene).
The big thing in India is that Ashraya (Miss World and Bollywood diva) didn't lose her baby fat after having a baby over two years ago. They want her thin.
For the Bollywood admirers here, :).
there were many Spanish comments for the youtube video and I had to sleuth around to find out why and found this music was used for a Brazilian soap opera.
Thank you Saint Croix, for that lovely comment -- India is not all about snake charmers, elephants, and the 25 other stupid things Ann had linked to in another post.
Hard to believe it could be worse than the hook up culture we have here. It might be a fun social engineering experiment for us.
Definitely a conservative culture.
Well, mostly middle class morality. The very top and the very bottom have no rules but it converges to a conservative something, layer by layer towards the middle. Things are a lot different there though, much more westernized (if you will) than when I was growing up there 25 years ago. Dating and finding your own partner is better accepted though not full scale premarital sex and the unintended consequences that go with it. Then again I have been away for more than two decades. So what do I know?
an “infamous Western cultural product.”
It's not?
but it is an open secret that most men do it.
Most? If you define Most as 'just about nearly all' then I think you're correct.
But Baby I love you...kinda.
Enormous disparities between rich and poor. The caste systems is very strong.
Yes, all that stuff is obvious to us. Slumdog MIllionaire is all about criticism of India. By a Brit, no less.
One thing you'll notice in actual art from India is how many rich people are in India. Of course we all know this isn't actually true. Their popular art reflects what they want their society to be like. And people in a Bollywood movie often have lots of money.
See Hollywood movies in the '30s, same thing. You'd think poor people (and India has a huge number of poor people) would hate the rich. But a lot of poor people strive to be rich and like to see what the life of rich people is like. Thus Bollywood doesn't make movies about slumdogs, but about wealthy or middle class people.
*Women* having sex before marriage is widely condemned.
We all see the unfairness of double standards. And India has obvious double standards. Men sleep with whores. And marry nice girls. So we say how unfair that is.
And yet, our own feminist society also has double standards in regard to sex. Roe v. Wade is the most obvious example of this. What "choice" do men have? We can be made fathers against our will. We can have fatherhood stripped from us, against our will.
It's so easy to criticize other cultures for their double standards and bigotry. While turning a blind eye to our own!
Of course, the reason we have these double standards is that women get pregnant and men do not. This simple biological fact underpins most of the double standards in any culture.
Our two sexes are biologically different! So we should expect to see (and do see) double standards, all the time. Particularly when it comes to sex itself.
The opportunities for unfairness are obvious. And it creates a "war of the sexes" in any and all cultures.
Conservatives in India recognize a double standard before the pregnancy. Feminists in our country try to abolish the double standard, at least until there's a pregnancy. Once there's a pregnancy, feminists are like, "Double standard! Of course there's a double standard. Why wouldn't there be a double standard?"
It's for the children, literally. While India has its problems, this is an aspect which is contributory to evolutionary fitness, and the underlying appreciation of responsibility is contributory to their continued enjoyment of liberty.
Saint Croix:
The fact that we are capable of rejecting our own fitness suggests two possibilities. First, we are more than a temporally limited coherent clump of cells. Second, there is a conspiracy by a minority (e.g. "elite") to sponsor evolutionary dysfunction in the general population. The former is an article of faith. While the latter implies extraordinary corruption and greed.
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