The Climax of a Life-Cycle Is Marriage
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“The climax of a life-cycle is marriage”.
This climax occurs most usually for at boy at the age of 10 and for the girl at 7. Her family pays a given amount of money called a dowry to the grooms family. It could be cash or a cow. From this age and on, the girl must become an obedient daughter-in-law, a sacrificing mother and a dominant mother-in-law.
Some still practise Suttee, which means, that if the woman becomes a widow, she must sacrifice her own life and burn alive on the pyre of her late husband. As seen in the first text, it is quite horrid to be a woman in India, because of the cruel sacrifices you must bear as a burden.
In text 4 we meet a 29 year old woman who is still unmarried and lives with her father. She fears her fathers unforgiving and mocking half-gleam as dreams of the perfect marriage, that would take her away from her current condition. While still with her father, she finds out, that her father has found a possible candidate for her to marry. This makes her happy, because she knows that shes about the fulfil her duty in life as an Indian woman. She, too, gets to escape from her fathers looks and know she has achieved her goal in life. When she then meets the man she is going to marry, shes allowed to dress-up and feels glad to finally meet her future husband. But as she sees him, she is horrified. Hes described as an old man in his forties and therefore not at all, what she had imagined for herself. She secretly hopes that her father will listen to her cries for escape from this man, but knows, deep down, that she shall not escape her fate. Even her aunt wants to help her, but knows that she has nothing to say.
In text 2 we see several matrimonial advertisement where all of them seek grooms. Every advertisement describes the young bride-to-be physically
– which underlines the statement that marriage in Indian is mostly superficial and has nothing to do with any emotion other than greed.