My thoughts are neither trenchant nor insightful; they are merely some mild mockery of the quoted article:

"That means Ash’s marriage to Abhishek could either end in divorce or his death."

Don't all marriages end in either divorce or somebody's death?

EG, hahahaha, great point.

I don't see this as all that big a deal... if she wants to respect her cultural traditions in this manner, who are we to tell her not to? Personally I do find the custom offensive (presumably they don't require MEN to do this, because who cares if men are married more than once) -- but that's not the point. This seems to me to fall more directly into religious/cultural traditions that don't inflict MAJOR harm (as opposed to things like FGM) and I'm inclined to let people follow their beliefs on things like this.

In the United States, most brides are still "given away" by their fathers. This disgusts me and if I ever get married, I'm going to have to find a way to break it to Dad that no one will be giving me away. I haven't decided yet whether I'd let him walk me down the aisle... but there will be no giving away of anyone, period. A lot of women -- feminists even -- still want very traditional ceremonies, complete with the "giving away" and everything. We're raised in a culture where this is the norm, and I think it brings a lot of women comfort. Traditions give you a sense of connection to your family and to your past and I can't really begrudge anyone the right to embrace such traditions -- particularly where a wedding ceremony is concerned.

I think FAR more encouraging is the fact that these two are choosing to marry each other (rather than an arranged marriage, which if I understand correctly is still fairly common at least among some Hindus... my law school roommate's Hindu (now-ex) boyfriend had an arranged marriage set up for him).

If a feminist can have an opinion about the free will of another woman - the execution of which doesn't violate another person's rights - then it's worrying.

Suppose it hadn't been a religious obligation, and I chose to marry a tree, because I am an environmentalist, is that somehow a better reason to do so? Feminism to me was about not having to justify my choice.

but think of the benefits of marrying a banana tree! all the bananas you want all the time (no need for consent on the part of the tree) and no one else can have any if you choose. all they need is some water and sunlight. sounds alot better than alot of marriages ive heard of.

I'm unfamiliar with Indian tradition, but I don't see what the big deal is, from a feminist standpoint. So she wants her marriage to be successful. Nothing wrong with that. But in this tradition, can a man marry a banana tree too?

Like Law Fairy, I'm going to file this under silly but harmless cultural tradtions. I'm assuming that the bananna tree marriage is symbolic, rather than legally binding. (I'm not sure of the legality and subsequent state recognition of a marriage to a banna tree, clay pot, or other inaminate object. But if you do follow the tradtion, marry a clay pot, and then smash the clay pot to become a widow, are you then considered a murderer?) As a symbolic gesture, it is no more silly than a bride here carrying something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue or the groom not seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony. The question becomes does this make Rai a bad feminist? I think feminism is all about giving women choices. If Rai chose to follow through with a ceremony some view as silly, well good for her.

At face value I want to laugh and say that this is only a supersition, not somethign to be upset about, but I don't think we're looking at it from within the Hindu culture. To us, it's funny and a little kooky but otherwise harmless. The same might be said of much of the misogyny in American culture that's marketed as comical. Hindu marriage, though, is far more patriarchal than marriages in America or most of Europe. I think we need a greater knowledge of the customs to appreciate what's going on here, or at least I know that I do.

Well my take on it goes something like this... I don't know enough about Indian culture to have much intelligent to say about it. In this case, I'd say the feminists in India are doing a fine job of raising the issues themselves.

Actually Tara K above put it well.

I don't see what the big deal is about it. It is a symbolic way to deal with superstition. Being that superstition can often become self fulfilling prophecies, why not? As long as she did it because she wanted to (and I don't see that she was forced to) I think it is actually a good thing. She wants her marriage to work and (superstition or not) wants to start out on the right track, even if it is just a mental barrier.

I don't see what the big deal is about it. It is a symbolic way to deal with superstition. Being that superstition can often become self fulfilling prophecies, why not? As long as she did it because she wanted to (and I don't see that she was forced to) I think it is actually a good thing. She wants her marriage to work and (superstition or not) wants to start out on the right track, even if it is just a mental barrier.

It's time to blam the gays -- this is the Slippery Slope in action.

Just talking about gay marriage is causing people to marry vegetation.

Think of the children (and the saplings!)

LOL! I like your theory, TikiHead!

Seriously, though - I am rather confused by this odd tradition, but a woman should have the right to do anything she wants. Even if it's kinda stupid.

To the feminists in India: there are bigger things to worry about than a celebrity marrying a tree.

I don't see what the big deal is about it. It is a symbolic way to deal with superstition. Being that superstition can often become self fulfilling prophecies, why not? As long as she did it because she wanted to (and I don't see that she was forced to) I think it is actually a good thing. She wants her marriage to work and (superstition or not) wants to start out on the right track, even if it is just a mental barrier.

We should understand that this marrying trees stuff is a reflection of the more practical consideration that her marriage is likely to survive or founder based on whether she continues to be more successful than her husband. Ash is a bigger and more established star than Abhishek, and unless she follows the standard protocol of actresses retiring upon marriage, there is every reason to believe that she'll go on in the same way. Whether she undergoes ritual marriage to a tree, a pot, or Scooby-Doo is less important than being able to say she took the proper steps to preserve her marriage, and pre-empt criticism down the line. Is this a proper object of feminist criticism? If you think it's wrong that women should bear all the burden of a successful marriage, or that they should allow their husbands to be more successful than them, then yes.

PS I should have clarified that "criticism down the line" is not the same as "feminist criticism,"... should have written "feminist critique" to be clear. Sorry

Isn't Aishwarya SUPER religious? I thought she went to the temple every single day at least once.

I can understand why they're upset, but I guess I'm just focusing on the old tradition of burning wives in the husband's funeral pyre. Someone, marrying a tree or urn pales in comparison to being burned alive.

So, does fondling a lucky rabbit's foot or avoiding the thirteenth floor or even tossing salt over your shoulder after an unfortunate spill set feminism back too?

Because that's important to know.

I really have no idea what to think about it because I really have no knowledge of Hindi culture. But from my American Heteronormative perspective, to me it just sounds like something you do just to appease older family members.

Don't all marriages end in either divorce or somebody's death?

Yea, but (and this is changing) widowhood is still very stigmatized in India, as is divorce. It's still a lot better for the men, who are generally pretty free to remarry. But women have a harder time of it.

I think Clare makes an excellent argument - Aish is known worldwide, and while her intended is a huge star in India, his popularity is really only among Indians. She's bringing more to the table career-wise. In order to uphold her reputation, she's playing it safe. Plus, she's supposed to be very religious as well, and may just see this as the right and proper thing to do. It's not hurting anyone, and I can't see how this would be setting womens' rights back in India. No one is forbidding her to ever marry because she's manglik. She (presumably) chose her own guy. And she will almost certainly keep acting after marriage.

I just hope the tree doesn't feel too betrayed ;)

i know exactly what this tradition is because my horoscope also showed that i had "manglik dosh" aqnd perfromed the ceremony to deal with the "issue."

i consider myself an ardent feminism-- and think of my mom and grandmother as feminists too. still, there were several things at play for me:
1) my decision to perform the ceremony was based heavily on family tradition.
2) it's definitely supersitious--but in much same way that some other thing religious activities could be considered superstitious. it's SYMBOLIC of something.
3) i was hedging my bets. i figured it was a few hours of my day and couldn't hurt... and the clay urn didn't object when i got married to my husband. :)

i agree with other posters that this is a small thing in comparision to the range of women's issues in India (and South Asia). I don't see how this sets feminism back and fail to see how her NOT doing this would effect some change to women's status in India.

Law Fairy, arranged marriages are still the majority of marriages in India. The concept of western-style "love" has still not taken hold all that much. And no, you don't have to judge India(ns) by how popular arranged marriages are, thank you very much.

Please please, don't even get me started on this whole Ash-Abhishek media circus which has been on for like, a year now!!!! Think of this couple as Brangelina, Indian-style. I'm just sick of them happening all over.

The Indian film industry, (Bollywood in particular) has been obsessed with unmarried actresses (yes, very patriarchal). It was assumed that a married actress would not be accepted by the audience. This is only changing now.

So most actresses after crossing their prime, usually try to "secure" their life by marrying some rich dude. Usually these are other actors, or businessmen or movie producers. Why do they do this? I dunno, just social norms, I guess.

Abhishek Bacchhan is the son of Amitabh Bacchhan (also called the Big B), the most successful movie star ever. Big B commands an unimaginable fan following from Africa to SE Asia. Hitching up with his son/family could be a perfectly smart career move for Ash, depending on what the family would let her do afterwards.

You can see this as someone following a silly tradition out of love or to keep older folks happy, or you can see this as someone setting time back, trying to meet some outrageous old superstitions out of desperation to get married to a good catch, or just a pragmatic career/life choice for an actress rapidly approaching a fading career.

Personally, I'd rather see the end of a lot of these sexist traditions in India. It's kinda sad for me that a woman as successful and accomplished as her didn't just walk away from this (unfortunately, she has a history of getting into physically abusive relationships). Of course, she *may* actually be in love with this guy.

As a very liberal Indian guy, I'm usually willing to give this stuff as much leeway as American liberals would give purity balls. Especially after all of Ash's appearances on Oprah and that, it does seem a bit hypocritical.

Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to provide some background to this debate. Now go to any damn Indian newspaper and enjoy the circus :D

Is the issue here that the woman had to marry the tree and not the man?

I know lots of feminist Wiccans who believe in Western astrology and have done little rituals to offset this or that. Why is Jyotish any worse?

Cheers,

Now there's a good question, Edo!

Cheers,

TH

Nobody ever asks the banana tree how it feels about all this.

When all is said and done, Ash's ritual may not amount to very much, true. But the thing with rituals is that not everyone places the same importance upon them, or sees the same meaning in them. What is innocuous to one person may be highly significant to someone else. Having read a bit more about this, I'd agree that launching a legal case is overdoing it somewhat, but I don't see what's wrong with asking questions about the assumptions and implications of this, or any other ritual -- which is what I meant by critique.

After reading Raj's post and giving this some thought, I get the vague sense that there is a very real feminist concern here, but that I don't know enough about Indian culture to understand it.

Cheers,

TH

nehavish wrote: "If a feminist can have an opinion about the free will of another woman - the execution of which doesn't violate another person's rights - then it's worrying. [...] Feminism to me was about not having to justify my choice."

I thought this was a really interesting point. Personally, I'm not feeling very strongly one way or the other about the politics of Ms. Rai's decision. However, I don't agree that feminism is about "not having to justify" a choice. I think feminism entails the right of women to make independent decisions, whether they're subversive or archaic (and I really don't know enough about Ms. Rai, Indian culture(s), or subcontinental politics to comment one way or the other). To me, feminism does not mean that we can't have or voice feelings about other people's choices- just that we ought to review our judgments and values from a critical perspectice.

Edo, that's the only issue for me.

Well, though I don't EXACTLY see how this puts women behind in the religious sense, I would like to add my great-grandfather also participated in this silly Hindu tradition and married a tree. That's right. I'm part banyan. Besides, polygamy and polyandry used to be quite common among Hindus until this past century rolled around. While many men did have multiple wives, there are just as many instances in Nepal and quite famously in the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata (Draupadi, the heroine, marries the five Pandava brothers...granted she was "won" by them, but you can't expect equal opportunity in ancient texts....) where a woman had many husbands.

Well, though I don't EXACTLY see how this puts women behind in the religious sense, I would like to add my great-grandfather also participated in this "silly" Hindu tradition and married a tree. That's right. I'm part banyan. Besides, polygamy and polyandry used to be quite common among Hindus until this past century rolled around. While many men did have multiple wives, there are just as many instances in Nepal, and quite famously in the Hindu epic the Mahabharata (Draupadi, the heroine, marries the five Pandava brothers...granted she was "won" by them, but you can't expect equal opportunity in ancient texts....), where a woman had many husbands.

I have a couple of disjointed points to make -

1) Men are asked to go through this process as well, if they are "mangliks", so, even though this can be considered silly superstition, it isn't necessarily discriminatory.

2) There are, in my opinion, far more sexist and discriminatory traditions in Indian culture - so much so that, to me, an Indian, this particular one seems almost trivial.

3) Interestingly, being "religious" in India isn't mutually exclusive from being liberal. I know VERY traditional men and women, who go to temples regularly, go to different piligrimages regularly, and yet are very liberal and open minded. My late grandmother was a perfect example of a very traditional/religious woman who was all about equality for all humankind. She went to medical school in Dhaka (when bangladesh was part of the state of bengal, in India) at a time when women were almost never allowed to go to college. Consequently, she was, for a while, the only female doctor in an area the size of Texas, with a population of 10s of millions. But I digress..

4)What, to me, is more disturbing is the misogyny present among young men in India, which is often couched as good natured humor or banter. Not all of the men indulging in such banter are necessarily misogynist, but peer pressure is a powerful thing. The damage that is done is: it reinforces the meme that objectifies women.

5) For a lot of young people these days, the archaic ceremonies are nothing more than ceremonies conducted to appease the elders/traditionalists of the family. Of course, this is not the case everywhere. For instance, part of the Indian wedding ceremony is the "Kanyadan" which, essentially, means "giving away of the daughter" - which is essentially quite a creepy concept. Before my sister's wedding, my father and my sister had a big laugh about the nomenclature - and it was generally understood that that term was used only to "keep the peace", as it were. In retrospect, it probably does re-inforce the genderist roles, but there are probably bigger fish to fry than customs which are slowly but surely losing their "religious" significance.

I completely agree with you, Ank. There should be an allowance and acceptance of the existence of the "liberal Hindu". The casual misogyny I've personally experienced in Indian culture is far more suffocating than a simple issue of a tradition that does not actively degrade Aishwarya. Besides, more importantly, she's been sued for *gasp* kissing Hrithik Roshan in a movie./sarcasm

Sheesh. Can we just say that anyone stupid enough to marry a tree because an astrologist (!) told her to, is exempt from exercising her tiny brain in regards to anything else?

And yes, I'm from India, I know how common faith in astrology is. Hell, my own family...never mind!

Sheesh. Can we just say that anyone stupid enough to marry a tree because an astrologist (!) told her to, is exempt from exercising her tiny brain in regards to anything else?

And yes, I'm from India, I know how common faith in astrology is. Hell, my own family...never mind!

I'll second you on that one, Ank and Antahkarana (nice name, btw). And add homophobia to the list.

I used to read Sepia Mutiny but had to unsubscribe a few times because of what yall are talking about.

Of course it wasn't the writing but some of the comments.

Haha, sorry Donna. I used to read Sepia Mutiny too. Looking back, I see what you mean about the comments but I swear I meant it in context of the feminists' anger towards Aishwarya's decision and not an endless tirade of circular thought.

What are you sorry about? I should mind my own business anyway. Besides, you answered everyone's question.

1) Men are asked to go through this process as well, if they are "mangliks", so, even though this can be considered silly superstition, it isn't necessarily discriminatory.

In case anyone else here is a tree person like me: Peepal is Ficus religiosa, the Bodhi tree. And I had to like this stuff:

According to the Skanda Purana, if one does not have a son, the peepal should be regarded as one. As long as the tree lives, the family name will continue.

To cut down a peepal is considered a sin equivalent to killing a Brahmin, one of the five deadly sins or Panchapataka. According to the Skanda Purana, a person goes to hell for doing so.
...
On Amavasya, villagers perform a symbolic marriage between the neem and the peepal, which are usually grown near each other. Although this practice is not prescribed by any religious text, there are various beliefs on the significance of 'marrying' these trees. In one such belief, the fruit of the neem represents the Shivalinga and so, the male. The leaf of the peepal represents the yoni, the power of the female. The fruit of the neem is placed on a peepal leaf to depict the Shivalinga, which symbolises creation through sexual union, and so the two trees are 'married'. After the ceremony, villagers circle the trees to rid themselves of their sins.

So the peepal is a "female" tree in one context, a "son" in another, and something like that Wash Away Your Sins(tm) soap I keep in the guest room. ("Lather, Rinse, Repent.")

I like seeing a tree appreciated. I do hope the procedure isn't to cut down the tree the way one breaks ther clay jar in its analogue.

Banana? Meh. A mere herbaceous perennial.