Thursday, July 08, 2010

Dowry and Alimony, two sides of the same coin

No self-respecting educated urbane woman would want to enter a relationship which involves a demand for dowry in exchange for getting married to a man.

But almost all of them not only acquiesce to, but insist upon, alimony when separating from their husbands. Rare is the woman who considers the breakdown of a relationship as a mutual tragedy and does not seek to wreak financial or other vengeance upon her husband.

In India, dowry is considered reprehensible because it demeans a woman by considering her as a liability, but by demanding alimony, women are themselves reinforcing the belief that they are unable to live on their own and need the financial support of a man.

Female infanticide is pervasive because a woman is considered a problematic citizen, in various ways. It behooves a modern woman to be less of a problem for her parents and in-laws by not burdening them with her demands of gifts at the time of matrimony, by not discomforting them with her demands of an expensive and consumerist and hedonist lifestyle during marriage, and by not insisting upon a ghastly amount of alimony when separating. The more women try to treat others' hard-earned money as their right, the more will men hate them and the more will society consider them inauspicious.

In a recent conference in India about the dowry menace, a well-respected elderly lady professor wisely commented that though generally it is the wife's in-laws who are believed to be greedy, nobody considers that many daughters, when they get married, themselves demand a lot of things from their own parents.

The culture of consumerism, easy and disposable money, living for oneself, is perhaps excusable if one is working to sustain one's lifestyle. But if an adult woman, despite being an earning member of society, demands crippling financial favors from her parents at the time of marriage, and demands a huge alimony from her husband when she wants to leave him, I consider that to be a greed licensed by society.

Women are generally believed to be weak, oppressed, victimized. But that is becoming less and less true as they acquire advanced educational degrees, get married to a man of their choosing, have better opportunities in the job market, are career-oriented, contribute to household finances, and participate in how the household should be run. In a modern city, parents educate their daughters so that they may become financially self-sufficient and will not need to play a subordinate role once they are married.

But what happens to such women when their marriage turns sour? They insult their education, their parents, and their status as earning, privileged, urban women when they start indulging in extortionist litigation and legal terrorism against their husbands and in-laws. Such women are no better than those men who demand huge dowry and beat up their wives if their demands are not fulfilled. In fact these women are worse, because they rope in the heavily biased machinery of state to terrorize their husbands and in-laws.

If a man or his family is demanding dowry and if a woman is not comfortable with that, she can choose to leave him and start living separately. No such option exists for a man from whom a vengeful wife is demanding alimony. He will be hounded by the corrupt police force, he will be directed to present himself and his entire family at innumerable court dates, and he will probably lose his home, job and more.

Demanding dowry is a crime. Is demanding alimony also considered a crime? It should be, for a financially self-sufficient woman. If a self-sufficient woman abuses the process of law to blackmail her husband just because their marriage did not work out, she should be deterred. Instead, it is all over the place in urban India these days. Read the papers, visit family courts, visit marital counseling and mediation centers, read the annals of matrimonial litigation. A common theme across them is the demand of huge alimony once a marriage has broken down.

Maintenance is understandable when children are involved, but even in those cases, women fight tooth and nail to deny custody and visitation to the father, from whom they have no compunction in taking money for bringing up their common progeny. If democracies all over the world follow the maxim "No taxation without representation", the fathers' rights movement justly demands "No maintenance without visitation." Instead estranged wives alienate the common children from their father, fill their minds with bitter and hateful thoughts about a man whom they could not get along with, and thus scar the children for life by presenting a warped and devious view of humankind.

A leading professor of a US university was abused no-end by his feminist colleagues when he hinted that a father should also have a say in the birth of a child, because he is legally constrained to maintain that child for a very long time. Women want it their way, and want men to pay for it.

Have these women no shame or dignity left? On one hand they decry mankind as full of pigs and chauvinists and patriarchs, and consider their own gender as much more humane and empathetic. But don't listen to their words, observe their acts. When marriages break down, women leave no stone unturned to paint their former lovers and husbands as demonic, vile, utter blackguards who ostensibly do not deserve any leniency and who should be hanged until death, if such women had their way.

All over India, harassed husbands and fathers and their families are uniting in their fight against these unscrupulous women who call themselves modern and liberated, but who abuse the laws made for dispossessed, destitute, victimized, poor women. Laws for maintenance, laws against domestic violence, laws against dowry harassment, laws against cruelty are being misused day-in and day-out by urbane women from whom no dowry was ever demanded, whose husbands never as much as laid a finger on them, whose husbands treated them as equals.

Even the Supreme Court of India calls this unfortunate trend "Legal Terrorism" but claims helplessness in checking it.

The voices of the real victims are being drowned out by the cacophony of these witches. Too many shepherds are falsely crying wolf too many times for anyone to pay attention when an actual wolf is on the scene.

Such women cannot have it both ways. They cannot condemn men, and in the same breath, demand their help. It is one of the bitterest pills for a husband to swallow when he is ordered to pay his hard-earned money to nourish and support a selfish and greedy wife who has nothing but hate and venom for him. If such women had any self-respect left, they would support themselves with the fruits of their own labour, and not become vengeful parasites.

Dowry is considered an evil because a woman is a human being, and an exchange of money for keeping her alive and healthy is uncivilized. But how civilized is her own demand of post-marital dowry (called alimony) from her husband? Is she suddenly in need of being financially supported by men? If it is considered reprehensible for a woman's father to pay her husband or herself for her sustenance at the time of marriage, is it not reprehensible for a woman's husband to pay her (and for the woman to demand so, public fora) for her continued sustenance once he is no longer married to her?

I consider the demand of alimony from working women a crime and a form of extortion. If husbands refuse to agree to a demand for alimony, I have seen women go to any extent of fabricated allegations of dowry harassment, domestic violence, marital rape, cruelty, and so on. The courts are filled to the brim with civil, quasi-civil and criminal cases filed by these legal terrorists.

But the tide is turning against these women. There is a growing awareness of their greed and extortionist tendencies, and nobody believes their stories anymore. The courts and the police are being repeatedly told not to take their allegations at face value. Of course that also means that genuine complaints also languish. These criminal-minded women have done a grave disservice to their oppressed and genuinely needy gender-folk.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dowry - Money given by the woman's family when the woman enters into matrimony (to start a family for life) in a state where she is usually without encumberances.
(where is the need for this money when it is the woman whose services like playing the role of wife, mother and DIL are being used by the husband and his family?)
Alimony to wife - Money paid to the woman who is usually now left to take care of the kids (she did not make them all by herself). It is compensation for breaking a contract (for life). Also it is a divorced woman who is left with a stigma and has a very difficult time getting married again, not so for a man( Is there no need for this money?)

How can you therefore talk of dowry and alimony as being one and the same?

Yes many women may misuse the "alimony" right and make false accusations to get more alimony out of greed and revenge. Yes this is reprehensible however when you look at the number of such women who wrong others vs the number of women who are wronged which one do you think is significantly more?

Anonymous said...

Analyse a little more: You will conclude there is something basically wrong with a society that expects a woman to merge her identity with the man and his family but has no such expectations of a man.

A man marries a woman to start a family, THEIR direct family. When they marry both the wife's and husband's family should have a policy of non interference in this new family that the couple chose to create. For example: if the husband's parents want to move in with the couple they should get a lawful consent from the bride to say it is OK for them to move in instead of letting them assume it is their divine right to stay in their sons home. If reasonable laws are put in place (with reasonable definitions of "interference")to ensure that this does not happen a lot of evils from Indian society would lessen just like dowry or bride burning or female infanticide.

This divine right that Indian society gives the male and his family to lord over a woman and her family is the root cause of majority of evils in Indian society.

Darshan Chande said...

I especially loved the use of words. Very strong and piercing. And of course, am totally in agreement with everything!

Anonymous said...

in most western countries, divorce between childless couples divides all earnings and assets equally and there is no ongoing alimony unless there is a prenup dictating otherwise.

alimony mainly comes into a childless divorce if mutually agreed upon, such as while one party is unable fulfill their 50% split obligations.

most couples try to come to a fair and privately agreed upon arrangement these days so they can put the failure behind them and move on without ongoing animosity.

the 50% split usually only applies to assets acquired 'during' the marriage, not prior or after, regardless of who made what as marriage is considered mutually supportive.

If there are children then whoever receives custody gets 50% of the assets plus a further 25% more for each child and in some cases everything for large families. in those cases the non custodian usually acquiesces without a fight in order to maintain peaceful relations and visitation rights with the large family. and sometimes if the assets were substantial enough the custodian may waive any further alimony so the generous non custodian parent can rebuild their assets easier.

in the case of insufficient assets the courts will 'order' the non-custodian to pay 'child support' till the children reach a certain age.

here the non-custodian parent cannot be denied visitation rights unless its proven in court that they are a danger to their children or the obligatory child support (alimony) is in arrears.

usually though, these days, divorcing couples try to come to private agreements outside the courts to avoid paying greedy lawyers.

alimony is mainly for 'child maintenance' (usually of young children) and no one disputes their need.

i heard recently there is a new option in the pipe line called a 'postnup'. sounds reasonable, to be able to make legal amendments during a marriage.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous: I understand maintenance for the kids. And I understand maintenance for the wife if the wife is destitute, or unable to support herself. In my essay I am focusing on educated women trying to profit from the breakdown of a marriage.

@anonymous:

You will conclude there is something basically wrong with a society that expects a woman to merge her identity with the man and his family but has no such expectations of a man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrilocal_residence

In case of large families with traditional modes of livelihood, either patrilocal or matrilocal residences will have to be there. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

@Anonymous:

the 50% split usually only applies to assets acquired 'during' the marriage, not prior or after, regardless of who made what as marriage is considered mutually supportive.

The irony is, this so-called "mutual support" is contradicted by the mutual allegations at the time of divorce painting the marriage as nothing but acrimony from day one. Modern Indian wives don't want to do household work, they want to be treated as equals, and in many many cases, they are. All middle class homes in India have maids. If in a traditional society like India, a marriage ends up in divorce, it can be assumed that the relationship was anything but "mutually supportive" and if the husband/wife earned anything, it must have been despite the stress, not because of the peace and harmony offered by home.

Harmanjit Singh said...

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/vaw-gp-2005/docs/experts/kishwar.dowry.pdf

Anonymous said...

Also note definition of patrilocal residence as per you wiki article : when a couple resides with or near the husband's family where the senior most in the husband's family makes the decisions.
Today it is the husband's parents who move into their son's home (not the son living in his parent's home).
Typically the son's home is sustained equally through both the son's and the son's wife's earnings almost never by the parents' earnings. Yet the son' s wife is still expected to just let the husband and his family lord over her and there is no law that can protect her from this. Do you not see how helpless such a woman is? What are her options within the Indian legal system?
Do you still think there is nothing wrong with the patrilocal system?
It is clearly the root cause of Indian families preferring a male progeny and all the marital injustices against women and by women are a result of this. It is high time people realized this.

Susan said...

Hi Harman,

What I understand from your post and comments is that you are referring to the financially independent women who have had an equal say and have had a partner who has shared the household responsibilities equally in a marriage. I fully agree with you that such a woman trying to extract alimony is morally incorrect. However the percentage of women belonging to this category, in my opinion, is extremely low. Alimony as a law has surely not been made keeping such women in mind.

Women belonging to the weaker or oppressed section (which is very large in our country) are not brought up in a way to have an independent point of view and usually do not have much say or choice in their marriages and involvement of dowry and therefore may need some support in case their marriage breaks down. Anyway, they are not the topic of discussion here. I beleive, there are other factors apart from dowry and oppression that need to be considered. There are many urbane educated women who would, as you said, not get into a marriage involving dowry (or rather they have that choice that many others don't). However, it is much more common for such a woman to make career related or other compromises as compared to their respective partners. It could be moving to a new city or country after getting married and looking for a job all over again or taking a break or a lighter or less stressful job for the sake of their families, more so once they have children. It is not that they are oppressed or not treated equal by their husbands. But it is an arrangement or role division that they mutually agree on for their own convenience. While entering into such agreement, it is usually considered to be a long term or life long arrangement by both. Some of these adjustments have a long term impact and if the marriage breaks down, these impacts should be ideally borne by both parties equally. When such women undergo a divorce, may be they should be compensated for the additional compromises that they have made for the sake of their relationship (even though they may be working or capable of finding a job). Although it does not mean that they should be given the right to rob their partners whichever way they want. And of course the same applies to a man who makes these compromises in a marriage.

I feel the percentage of women who should be given a compensation for various reasons is much higher compared to the women who actually make use of this for some easy money. But since it is a complicated issue, it at times becomes much easier for the undeserving women to make use of it. more so because they are mostly educated and influential, financially and otherwise. I am not sure if there could be a solution to stop women from misusing this. Removing alimony from law doesn't seem to be a good option though.

Anonymous said...

these days (in my western country) the wife is free to choose her husbands surname, even though she now automatically retains her maiden name. inequality is passe these days.

Harman wrote: "The irony is, this so-called "mutual support" is contradicted by the mutual allegations at the time of divorce painting the marriage as nothing but acrimony from day one."

easy on, this is not always the case and the mutual support i was referring is the sharing of responsibility for the maintaining of the assets as they grew during the marriage. 'that' mutual support is considered an equal contribution whether it be physical or purely financial since often one party has spent huge amounts of earning time caring for the assets and the physical well being of the other partner so they may be free to contribute financially, unburdened. in this country we cannot hire maids for a pittance nor do we wish to. exploitation is passe.

in my opinion, in this day and age, if a marriage becomes acrimonious to the degree you are describing i consider it the fault of both parties.

for as long as people with perfectly capable brains refuse to examine and be aware of the nature of their inherent instinctual fears and aggressions and to access libraries or the internet to learn about them but just blindly let them run rampant within their relationships, they have no one else to blame but themselves.

the price we pay for keeping our head in the clouds and holding unreal expectations of others whilst ignoring our own messy psyche is divorce i.e., dissociation from reality.

Anonymous said...

Just have one law abolishing the patrilocal or matrilocal residence without couples' legal consent, there will be no need for a dowry law, female infanticide law or bride burning law. Then there will be no question of anyone abusing it.

To find a real solution one has to uproot the root cause. This whole patrilocal concept is totally invalid, biased and out of date in todays world where both partners contribute equally to sustain a household.

Anonymous said...

"Just have one law abolishing the patrilocal or matrilocal residence without couples' legal consent"

and just who is going to do this thieving seizing, the government? surely you jest

Anonymous said...

Harman wrote:

No self-respecting educated urbane woman would want to enter a relationship which involves a demand for dowry in exchange for getting married to a man. But almost all of them not only acquiesce to, but insist upon, alimony when separating from their husbands. Rare is the woman who considers the breakdown of a relationship as a mutual tragedy and does not seek to wreak financial or other vengeance upon her husband."

when i read these words i can't help wondering what's happened to your knowledge of the human condition.

do you truly no longer see the cultural backlog of programming and instinctual passions controlling these people?

Pankaj said...

there's a difference between law and individual position. as an individual, it is indeed reprehensible for a self sufficient, employed woman to expect alimony. but at an aggregate, social level, women have the traditional role of housemakers. even educated woman have to give up their careers to look after the household. this certainly puts them at a disadvantage. i dont disagree with alimony as a law. once this aggregate position is corrected, the lay can be done away as well.

Anonymous said...

but if India uses the same excuse for continuing this custom as it does for it's cast system, then nothing will change. "this is OUR tradition" they cry! the Japanese use the same nonsense for their whaling. every culture does. these are SACRED tradition, the souls of cultures. i tell you the soul of everything is starting to looking dumber and dumber everyday.

in fact it just amazes me sometimes that people can even string two words together so few use anything more than the most shallow parroting portions of the brain. its weird watching all this unused mental potential going to waste. like watching billions of semiconscious ghouls having lively conversations about NOTHING that hasn't been said a billion times before! and if one dares to speak of something brand spanking new, they all go stone deaf. lately human life has started to look quite creepy and i've retreated to leave it to the madding crowds to adoringly adorn an emperor that doesn't exist.

Anonymous said...

Sati was the custom or culture of the day when it took a foreign power like the British to abolish the custom with one law giving Indians no option but to accept the law.

Today we have no authoritarian power to enforce a law abolishing the patriachal or patrilocal systems taken for granted in Indian society and used as an excuse to take the woman for granted in India.

Even if you cannot get the Govt to enforce such a law surely if educated men like Harman can now see how unfair and invalid this concept is and how it is the root main cause of women being treated badly and behaving badly themselves, then my purpose of writing here would have been served.

Men in India will have to understand once they get married they are doing so to start their own family, not just to continue their fathers or grandfathers family. Therefore if they continue to treat a woman as if she is just a tool to continue the lineage of his family and not hers, they will see a backlash from the woman who has been unfairly pushed into this role(which is even genetically wrong because boys inherit just one X chromosome from their moms and the X has far more genetic material than the puny Y chromosome they inherit from their dads!, girls on the other hand inherit one X from mom and one from dad). So whatever way you think about it, a social change has to take place regarding this unfair treatment of a woman which makes her helpless and hit back with brute force when the stress becomes unbearable for her.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"Men in India will have to understand once they get married they are doing so to start their own family, not just to continue their fathers or grandfathers family."

right on, and further, we are being reminded over here that if we only ever vote (proudly) the way we've always voted or the way our parents (proudly) always voted there's no point in going to the poles. we aren't exercising the whole reason the voting system exists, a chance to change.

yes it's truly amazing that we 'can' string two words together, but then maybe not, since we only say the same ol things ......for centuries.

the fun thing is that as you begin to snap out of it, everything single thing you see and do is a lesson in futility that you can't scramble out of fast enough. the urgency escalates.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"Today we have no authoritarian power to enforce a law abolishing the patriarchal or patriotical systems taken for granted in Indian society and used as an excuse to take the woman for granted in India."

doesn't Indian parliament use it's legislative assembly to abolish defunct laws and vote in the new, whilst we are still so dumb as to need others to FORCE us to behave sensibly?

even if a motion has to be re-presented for decades, if it is sensible enough and as a nations mindset g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y changes there should eventually be a consensus vote for more sensible laws. isn't India's gvt utilizing that democratic option?

Oh right, the people keep voting for patriarchal parties. well there you go.... mob rules. a stupid government only reflects the stupidity of the people who voted for it.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous: Do you still think there is nothing wrong with the patrilocal system?

Every system (be it nuclear, patrilocal, matrilocal, single parenting) has its upsides and downsides. But in the context of this article, for urbane couples, it is usually a nuclear family. I don't think the wife sacrifices anything at all by moving in with him.

@anonymous:

do you truly no longer see the cultural backlog of programming and instinctual passions controlling these people?

I once heard of a spiritual teacher who was asked by a poor woman on how to better educate her kids now that they were becoming very precocious. His answer was, and I quote, "The whole world is suffering. There is no lasting solution but to abide in the Brahma."

The laws are there to modulate the behavior of normal human beings. I am talking about the misuse of those laws by normal human beings. Talking about their "conditioning" as a factor is as useful as talking about sexuality, or the energy from the sun, being the root cause of it all.

@anonymous:

which is even genetically wrong because boys inherit just one X chromosome from their moms and the X has far more genetic material than the puny Y chromosome they inherit from their dads!, girls on the other hand inherit one X from mom and one from dad

There is no other way to say it, but wherever you are getting your feminist thought-for-the-day, ain't gonna be at a genetic conference anytime soon.

Anonymous said...

Harman: "I am talking about the misuse of those laws by normal human beings."

:-) well, don't they match? normal twisted laws for normal devious human beings to misuse as they normally do?

Harman: "Talking about their "conditioning" as a factor is as useful as talking about sexuality, or the energy from the sun, being the root cause of it all."

so whats your point then, whats constructive about griping about the griping masses.

why are you raging against the injustices of the uneducated masses. you now hold a deeper knowledge of the root cause of their predicaments, it serves you nor them one jot to withhold it

its like you have digressed to when in Rome, add fuel to the fire...

you were once as unaware as them too remember, and if it weren't for the few who dared to speak out, you would never have glimpsed as much as you did about the human condition and its potential for commonsense and joy. you'd still be one of them. so why are you writing as tho you are and have returned to the herd.

whats happened to you man?

speak if it helps, we are here for you too.

Harmanjit Singh said...

why are you raging against the injustices of the uneducated masses. you now hold a deeper knowledge of the root cause of their predicaments, it serves you nor them one jot to withhold it

It is impossible (or at least impossibly impractical) to even attempt to take out the "root cause" (the socio-biological conditioning) at the large scale. Then laws are actually not needed. But it is a meaningless utopia.

It is far better/useful/practical to educate and modulate. I am no longer an idealist who seeks an end of suffering etc., only incremental changes in our use of violence and force. For example, in this particular case, I am writing about the perils of affirmative action for women.

Anonymous said...

"only incremental changes in our use of violence and force"??????
Harman, it is clear you wrote a piece that was based on faulty logic and each of your defenses has been proved wrong beyond doubt. you are obviously having a difficult time accepting that. You look even more foolish with your replies.
I dare you to post this comment.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous:

Harman, it is clear you wrote a piece that was based on faulty logic and each of your defenses has been proved wrong beyond doubt. you are obviously having a difficult time accepting that. You look even more foolish with your replies.

If you have nothing of substance to say except use epithets and adjectives ("faulty logic", "having a difficult time", "foolish", "proved beyond doubt") then in future, instead of "daring" me to publish your enlightening commentary, allow me the freedom to moderate it as I see fit.

Anonymous said...

From the above anonymous comments, I see AF fundamentalism on the rise.

To be on the safe side, I'm going to post my comment as anonymous as well!

Anonymous said...

"But it is a meaningless utopia."

i don't think you can give it up harman. you've had a taste of that utopia and its better than any drug.

and i don't think your really believe the end of suffering is an ideal either. and too much concern about the "larger scale" keeps you conceptualizing.

i think its closer than we think. i don't think the emotions delete but become like an obsolete organ that then atrophies. i have the sense that one must climb into another area of the mind that sees the senselessness in emotional reactions.

i compare whats happening to me as like learning to drive a manual car. i'm in the senses most of the time now that parts easy, and watching the mind moving in and out of day dreams and stopping it but i keep forgetting to become aware of apperception when the coast is clear. i know something will click into gear when i finally coordinate these two and then the car will glide along smoothly. i'm still jerking it down the road at the moment, because i never concentrate enough.
i think a meditation background would have been a great help.

itsme said...

this article was hilarious as well as the comments:-)

Ketan said...

LOL @ anonymous who said: "when in Rome, add fuel to the fire..."

Isn't it easy to see, it's quite entertaining to be in Rome? ;)

Again, a note on irony that lack of free will (if it truly is lacking) leads to:

Even if Harmanjit is aware of the underlying human condition that leads people to behave thus, it is his *condition* that leads him to react on an emotional or alternatively rational plane to these injustices by educated woman.

If following that you cite lack of free will, Harmanjit might acknowledge your point, or reject it as irrelevant to the present discussion (he 'chose' the latter). But doing either of two would again be pre-determined by the states within his brain.

But most ironically, that you point out Harmanjit could better focus on human condition that's caused all this, is also a case of lack of free will. You were pre-programmed to point all this out the way you did (and even the way I am doing).

So, while in Rome, it's important to have fun. One can have fun by doing what the Romans do, by adding fuel to the fire, trying extinguish it, or as one ingenious blogger had said - by doing the Romans!

Because, after dying everything ends there, whether you be in Rome, or outside of it.

Apologies for my totall off-topic comment!

Ruchi said...

I see a much larger percentage of men misusing their position of undue power in the Indian society as opposed to women misusing the laws in their favour (ratio 999:1 if not more). Neither of them are justified but sadly women get a much stronger, rather vicious, opposition merely because the opposite sex still enjoys a more favorable and powerful position in our society and are able to use it in an attempt to 'put her back into her place'. I don't see such vicious attacks against the inherently corrupt men and the social norms that support his corruption.

It is also very sad to see the modern educated Indian woman forced to compromise her identity and suffer everyday because of these cruel age-old social rules and expectations of her that in no way can be satisfied by any ordinary mortal in todays world. These only end up reducing the person who is to a nothing - tiring her out and beating out any signs of individualism in her. There is no way she is allowed to be her own person unless she has a father or husband to categorically support her and in this case too the male person offering support may be castigated at some point.

Apart from very few spiritually advanced persons I have yet to find someone who considers women as "normal people" in their own right as opposed to someone born to play a supporting role to the normal people (i.e. men) or as objects of entertainment.

My thought is that I do not feel the need to debate upon the misuse of such laws by a very low minority of women as much as I do to support the empowerment of female persons/citizens in our society whose number is by far much much greater, the number of the former being negligible in comparison. The only reason such topics are expressed in a volatile manner is because it is a very new phenomenon for our society to see women benefit by a power given to them for a perfectly legitimate reason. Most men are not able to adjust to the notion of women having an equal status, let alone an upper hand or power over anything at all and we see them raving and ranting in public forums.

Anonymous said...

Harmanjit Singh said...
Such women cannot have it both ways. They cannot condemn men, and in the same breath, demand their help. It is one of the bitterest pills for a husband to swallow when he is ordered to pay his hard-earned money to nourish and support a selfish and greedy wife who has nothing but hate and venom for him. If such women had any self-respect left, they would support themselves with the fruits of their own labour, and not become vengeful parasites."


Such men cannot have it both ways. They cannot condemn women, and in the same breath, demand her help. It is one of the bitterest pills for a wife to swallow when she is ordered to give up her ability to earn her own living to nourish and support a selfish and greedy husband who has nothing but hate and venom for her. If such men had any self-respect left, they would let her earn an equal wage for the fruits of her labour, and not become a vengeful parasite.

Anonymous said...

So what is the way out of this hate between man and woman in a democracy? Marry and get divorced and kids go crazy shooting in the schools? Or stay single and not have kids at all? Democracy seems to be doomed.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

"So what is the way out of this hate"

become a sensible apperceptive flesh and blood human being *only* and 'actually care' instead of just 'feeling it', as tho *your feelings* are heroic bestowals of beautiful and orderly offerings.

Anonymous said...

"So what is the way out of this hate between man and woman in a democracy?"

the way out of human malice is to look deeper. its at the root of all human conflict, then delete the useless hero. it fouls everything we do not just politics.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous actualists:

You just don't give up anonymously propagating your philosophy, do you now? Grrr.

Anonymous said...

for me its tit for tat..but of-course not with same party. Dowry is illegal but socially acceptable while Alimony is legal but personally non-acceptable..:)

Alimony should be given in case of only if partner was cheated or been suffered not vice versa(definition needs to be defined for suffering)or not capable to earn or could earn but scarified her career because spouse asked so,

or, if kids are there to look after.

payal jhanwar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

How did you approve of the Jaipur institute comment above?

Harmanjit Singh said...

@anonymous. thanks for pointing out. deleted. must have bulk approved by mistake.