Last
year the first incident of solo gamy was reported from India wherein 24 years
old woman name Kshama Bindu from Gujarat tied the knot with herself. It has
been projected and celebrated as the idea of self-love and liberation from the
oppressive patriarchal social setup. The practice of solo gamy or self-marriage
can be defined as the act of marrying oneself. However, it does not have any
social/legal/religious validity. The act of solo gamy can be examined from
different perspectives, for example psychological, legal, theological etc. But
herein, I am interested to look at solo gamy from a sociological and
anthropological perspective.
Family
is considered one of the major social institutions along with polity, economy,
and religion in the discipline of anthropology/sociology. In fact, students of
sociology and anthropology are familiar with the concept of family as more
often an entire paper is dedicated to understanding Family, Marriage, and Kinship.
The basic idea of the family comprises a group of individuals sharing
relationships based on blood (consanguineal kinship) and relationship based on
marriage (affinal kinship). Marriage and family are the two sides of the same
coin. Marriage provides the sanctity to the conjugal relationship of husband
and wife. The website of Encyclopaedia Britannica[1] defines marriage as:
“a legally and socially sanctioned union,
usually between a man and
a woman, that is regulated by laws, rules, customs, beliefs, and attitudes that
prescribe the rights and duties of the partners and accords status to their offspring
(if any)”
The
most common form of marriage observed in our society is monogamy, in which generally
a union between a man and woman takes place. But it is important to note that
it is not the only form of marriage that exists in our diverse society. On the
basis of the number of spouses, marriage can be of two types- monogamy and
polygamy. Polygamy is again can be of two types- polygyny (a man marrying
multiple women) and polyandry (a woman marrying multiple men) and even
fraternal polyandry (a woman marrying all the sons in a family). There exist
different reasons to justify these kinds of marriage practices but to explain
all that is beyond the scope of this article[2].
Marriage
is an important life cycle event that marks the transition of an individual
from one stage to the next stage of life. It is one of the ‘rites of passage’ along
with birth, puberty, and death (refer to ven Gennep’s work).
Consider
a scenario where it is not accompanied by any change per se in the social and
cultural life of any individual. One
continues to stay with one’s own family post-solo gamy. There will be no change
in the life of the individual per se ‘post-marriage’. The question arises in
such a scenario is that will society function in the case of solo gamy?
In
my opinion, it will still function as not all individuals are going to opt for
solo gamy. We have the concept of ‘swayamvar’ in ancient times in India
where the princes were called upon for the marriage of the princess. The
princes or the suitors had to undergo tough competition in order to qualify
to be the husband of the princess. We have heard many interesting stories of the swayamvar
of Sita (from Ramayan), swayamvar of Draupadi (from Mahabharat), and swayamvar
of Rani Sanyogita (wife of King Prithvi Raj Chauhan from Rajasthan). Interestingly, the princesses were free to
choose their own husbands in the case of this swayamvar. Moreover, if we look at the word swayamvar,
its loose Hindi translation will be that princess will choose her own husband
but there is also a hidden meaning. The word Swayamvar is made up of two words-
swayam + var which implies ‘kanya ne swayam ko var liya hai’
(English translation- the bride has married herself first).
As
per the Alliance theory of Levi-Strauss, the institution of marriage is required
for the well-functioning of society as the alliance of different groups forms through the exchange of women. But that was applicable in the case of traditional societies and
not in the case of modern societies when we have all forms of networking and
exchange.
In my opinion, one or two random cases of solo gamy are not going to affect the foundation of kinship and marriage practices in Indian society.
