sbehuria
26th March 2008, 01:08 PM
DINK, DINS and DINM
First there was DINK, then DINS and now DINM – in all cases the victim is marriage. In case you are wondering what this is all about:
DINK: double Income No Kids
DINS: Double Income No Sex
DINM: double Income No Marriage
A Bangalore techie killed his wife, suspecting an extra-marital affair and then committed suicide. His suicide note said, he was afraid that his wife will legally harass him under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Though the reason was something else, the fear of legal harassment led him to choose a path of destruction. A marital discord that could have been sorted out in various other ways, ended in death of two lives as a result of a thoughtless Act of Parliament which is “lose all win none”.
First there was DINK. As both parents got busy in a dual income life-style they had no time to think of looking after the kids and the best solution was to have no kids. Often, it was a question of who will stay at home to look after the kids. The break-down of the joint family system saw an end to the grand parents taking care of the kids. This was in any case not much appreciated by the young couple as the discrepancy in values between the generations led to the younger couple wishing their progeny to be brought up on more modern than age old values.
Then came DINS. I am so busy making my career and earning money that there is no time to express affection and sex is the last thing on my mind – I am just so tired. I quote from a Reuters article in 2001;
The label drew a laugh when former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., cited it as one of the hazards of overload in a speech at a recent work-life conference. "The crowd was in hysterics," says Susan Seitel, a Minnetonka, Minn., publisher who attended. "It's really tough. People don't have time" for sex.
The problem of low- or no-sex marriages is coming out of the closet. A flurry of recent books, TV coverage and watercooler talk are drawing new attention to the matter, as some long-term trends come to a head: First a conservative tilt in prevailing values is casting a spotlight on the importance of preserving marriages. At the same time, a tide of sex-saturated media is making sexual behavior an everyday topic.
Finally, women's growing clout as breadwinners is upsetting the old balance of power in many marriages, making some wives feel freer to speak up about their sexual wants -- and to resist having sex if they choose.
It's not clear whether the frequency of sex in marriage has fallen, or whether we're just talking about it more, says Michele Weiner Davis, a Woodstock, Ill., therapist, seminar leader and author of "The Sex-Starved Marriage," which recently hit No. 3 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.
Research by Denise Donnelly of Georgia State University, who is writing a book on celibacy in marriage, shows 16% of couples fail to have sex at least once a month, a pattern she found predicted marital unhappiness and divorce.
Dual-earner lifestyles aren't the root cause, says Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Fatigue is a better predictor of low sex desire in women than work roles, Dr. Hyde and others found in a study of more than 500 women and their husbands. And homemakers reported just as much fatigue as employed women. The notion that wives' employment causes celibacy may just be a handy way to dodge deeper sexual problems, Dr. Hyde says.
Women aren't the only ones refusing sex, either. In a study of 75 married people in sexually inactive marriages, Dr. Donnelly found that in 60% of the cases, it was the man who had stopped the sex. The couples cited a variety of apparent reasons, from extramarital affairs to demanding jobs, drugs, alcohol or finances.
Whatever the cause, a low frequency of sex in marriage is a problem if either partner thinks it is”.
Going back to the Bangalore Techie, does a low sex life (if this was the case) make the husband more prone to suspect extra-marital existence for every whispered conversation? Does a low sex life at home make anyone vulnerable to have “fun at work’? Does today’s working environment allow work and amorous pleasure to co-exist, and therefore can do away with sex in marriage?
DINM
Are we reaching a stage where the solution lies in no marriage at all? Change in values and lifestyles apart, is the law itself gagging the institution of marriage in India (specific to section 498A of the IPC)?
The bane of Indian marriages has been the “Dowry System” and section 498A of the IPC is a direct result of that system, ostensibly to save the woman from harassment by her husband and in-laws.
Indian social system is a direct result of patriarchal domination in terms of inheritance of property – though matriarchal societies exist. As per Hindu Undivided Family System- whether Mitkshara or Dayabhaga - the sons became the heir to the property of the deceased male while the wife received only a right to residence and the daughter’s nothing, except gratis from the brothers in case she was to become a destitute. This also means that the daughter had no right to any property in the family where she was born, and when she got married, she either came to hold a ‘right of residence’ or gratis from parental family if she lost all.
As all social systems are basically fair and cannot exist without this basic condition, the law makers by whatever means had to find some substitute of providing some share in property for the daughter. Thus was born the system of dowry.
“A dowry (also known as trousseau) is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage.
The opposite direction, property given to the bride by the groom, is called dower or mahr. Normally the bride would be entitled to her dowry in event of her widowhood, prior to the evolution of her dower rights; so common was this that the terms "dowry" and "dower" are sometimes confused.
The dowry should not be confused with a bride price, money or goods paid by the prospective groom to the bride's parents in exchange for her hand in marriage.” - Wikipedia
Dowry became the ‘Stree-Dhan’ or absolute property of the woman to which no male member had any access, and the daughter inherited this from the mother. In this sense dowry was a progressive measure that gave the daughter her share of the property at the time of her marriage while the sons had to wait until the estate devolved on them.
Problems arose when Dowry came to be the right of the Groom and obligation of the bride’s parents. Due to the overall influence male member had in a marital relationship, the dowry of the bride was usurped for the benefit of the groom and his family until it virtually became their own property and the real owner was divested of any rights in it.
To rectify the above situation and to make the bride’s life easier, the male dominated patriarchal society in it’s wisdom decided that the best way they could protect and respect a woman’s life was to legislate the Dowry prohibition act of 1961 and amendments thereon in 1984 and 1986 which inter alia made giving and taking of Dowry illegal. Whether it achieved its objectives or not is a matter of concern and debate? Was the government putting the ladder on the wrong wall? What did this in effect do? While there has been further legislation to protect the woman’s property rights, the Dowry Abolition Act in its aftermath made the woman a legacy destitute as soon as she was married, both in her parental home and in her bridal home. She held no inheritance rights to any property and therefore economically weaker than her husband. Her parents willed the property to the male heirs as socially and psychologically they were not tuned to bequeath property to daughters, as that would result in dilution of the family name. Did this in any way help the status of women anywhere? Did this make marriages more unequal as the woman now had only an emotional relationship with her parental family with no financial rights, while she became dependent on her husband’s family for his rights in parental property. In a dual income couple’s life she increasingly spurned the husband’s rights to his share in family property, as her inequality in inheritance put her in an inferior position. This strained the husband’s umbilical relationships leading to further stress between the couple.
The government, being still male dominated, instead of looking to address the balance in a marital relationship (putting first things first) was looking to protect the woman’s non-existent rights. Whatever rights existed had already been taken away in 1961. To overcome the supposed deficiency in the Dowry acts the Draconian 498A was enacted – the Bangalore Techies disastrous end is a direct result of this Act, as per his suicide note.
What is Section 498 A? It says ‘Whoever, being the husband or a relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to three years and shall also be liable to fine.” In practice cruelty is taken to be any demand for dowry. This section is non-bailable, non-compoundable (complaint that cannot be quashed), and cognizable (arrest without investigation or warrant) on report from a woman or close relative.
There is already a SIFF (Save India Family Foundation) of husband’s harassed under this Act for other marital discords. This act has in the name of saving the woman from harassment and giving her a shield has put her in a position where the honorable Justices of the S.C. had to warn against ‘Legal Terrorism’ for misuse of this Act. “Dowry Law is a shield, not an assassin’s weapon,” they said.
What is the result of the Act to protect a woman’s rights in her marriage? Has it destroyed the institution of marriage itself? Has it put the male partner in the marriage to terminate the spouse rather than the marriage, in the fear that one is no worse than the other? Will this lead to more and more ‘Living Together’ ‘Partnerships’ or ‘Common Law Marriage’.
This is what happened in the west. As more and more marriages ended in divorce, with the resultant mess of division of income, wealth, children’s rights, visitation rights, less and less people got married. Instead they started to live together in partnerships. Where ever they needed some form of social sanction and legal documentation, they resorted to a Common Law Marriage. They were seeking solutions for the end of marriage before they even started!!
Will we see the same in India? If a couple is not married the Dowry Abolition Act and Section 498A are not applicable, regardless of the quantum of harassment. There will be no fear of legal harassment as they are not married. The woman does not have to live as a second class citizen in her own home. Her own family cannot treat her as someone who has been ‘married off’ and therefore one less number in the family inheritance list. So will there be DINM for at least the dual income couples? Your comments are welcome.
First there was DINK, then DINS and now DINM – in all cases the victim is marriage. In case you are wondering what this is all about:
DINK: double Income No Kids
DINS: Double Income No Sex
DINM: double Income No Marriage
A Bangalore techie killed his wife, suspecting an extra-marital affair and then committed suicide. His suicide note said, he was afraid that his wife will legally harass him under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Though the reason was something else, the fear of legal harassment led him to choose a path of destruction. A marital discord that could have been sorted out in various other ways, ended in death of two lives as a result of a thoughtless Act of Parliament which is “lose all win none”.
First there was DINK. As both parents got busy in a dual income life-style they had no time to think of looking after the kids and the best solution was to have no kids. Often, it was a question of who will stay at home to look after the kids. The break-down of the joint family system saw an end to the grand parents taking care of the kids. This was in any case not much appreciated by the young couple as the discrepancy in values between the generations led to the younger couple wishing their progeny to be brought up on more modern than age old values.
Then came DINS. I am so busy making my career and earning money that there is no time to express affection and sex is the last thing on my mind – I am just so tired. I quote from a Reuters article in 2001;
The label drew a laugh when former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., cited it as one of the hazards of overload in a speech at a recent work-life conference. "The crowd was in hysterics," says Susan Seitel, a Minnetonka, Minn., publisher who attended. "It's really tough. People don't have time" for sex.
The problem of low- or no-sex marriages is coming out of the closet. A flurry of recent books, TV coverage and watercooler talk are drawing new attention to the matter, as some long-term trends come to a head: First a conservative tilt in prevailing values is casting a spotlight on the importance of preserving marriages. At the same time, a tide of sex-saturated media is making sexual behavior an everyday topic.
Finally, women's growing clout as breadwinners is upsetting the old balance of power in many marriages, making some wives feel freer to speak up about their sexual wants -- and to resist having sex if they choose.
It's not clear whether the frequency of sex in marriage has fallen, or whether we're just talking about it more, says Michele Weiner Davis, a Woodstock, Ill., therapist, seminar leader and author of "The Sex-Starved Marriage," which recently hit No. 3 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.
Research by Denise Donnelly of Georgia State University, who is writing a book on celibacy in marriage, shows 16% of couples fail to have sex at least once a month, a pattern she found predicted marital unhappiness and divorce.
Dual-earner lifestyles aren't the root cause, says Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Fatigue is a better predictor of low sex desire in women than work roles, Dr. Hyde and others found in a study of more than 500 women and their husbands. And homemakers reported just as much fatigue as employed women. The notion that wives' employment causes celibacy may just be a handy way to dodge deeper sexual problems, Dr. Hyde says.
Women aren't the only ones refusing sex, either. In a study of 75 married people in sexually inactive marriages, Dr. Donnelly found that in 60% of the cases, it was the man who had stopped the sex. The couples cited a variety of apparent reasons, from extramarital affairs to demanding jobs, drugs, alcohol or finances.
Whatever the cause, a low frequency of sex in marriage is a problem if either partner thinks it is”.
Going back to the Bangalore Techie, does a low sex life (if this was the case) make the husband more prone to suspect extra-marital existence for every whispered conversation? Does a low sex life at home make anyone vulnerable to have “fun at work’? Does today’s working environment allow work and amorous pleasure to co-exist, and therefore can do away with sex in marriage?
DINM
Are we reaching a stage where the solution lies in no marriage at all? Change in values and lifestyles apart, is the law itself gagging the institution of marriage in India (specific to section 498A of the IPC)?
The bane of Indian marriages has been the “Dowry System” and section 498A of the IPC is a direct result of that system, ostensibly to save the woman from harassment by her husband and in-laws.
Indian social system is a direct result of patriarchal domination in terms of inheritance of property – though matriarchal societies exist. As per Hindu Undivided Family System- whether Mitkshara or Dayabhaga - the sons became the heir to the property of the deceased male while the wife received only a right to residence and the daughter’s nothing, except gratis from the brothers in case she was to become a destitute. This also means that the daughter had no right to any property in the family where she was born, and when she got married, she either came to hold a ‘right of residence’ or gratis from parental family if she lost all.
As all social systems are basically fair and cannot exist without this basic condition, the law makers by whatever means had to find some substitute of providing some share in property for the daughter. Thus was born the system of dowry.
“A dowry (also known as trousseau) is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage.
The opposite direction, property given to the bride by the groom, is called dower or mahr. Normally the bride would be entitled to her dowry in event of her widowhood, prior to the evolution of her dower rights; so common was this that the terms "dowry" and "dower" are sometimes confused.
The dowry should not be confused with a bride price, money or goods paid by the prospective groom to the bride's parents in exchange for her hand in marriage.” - Wikipedia
Dowry became the ‘Stree-Dhan’ or absolute property of the woman to which no male member had any access, and the daughter inherited this from the mother. In this sense dowry was a progressive measure that gave the daughter her share of the property at the time of her marriage while the sons had to wait until the estate devolved on them.
Problems arose when Dowry came to be the right of the Groom and obligation of the bride’s parents. Due to the overall influence male member had in a marital relationship, the dowry of the bride was usurped for the benefit of the groom and his family until it virtually became their own property and the real owner was divested of any rights in it.
To rectify the above situation and to make the bride’s life easier, the male dominated patriarchal society in it’s wisdom decided that the best way they could protect and respect a woman’s life was to legislate the Dowry prohibition act of 1961 and amendments thereon in 1984 and 1986 which inter alia made giving and taking of Dowry illegal. Whether it achieved its objectives or not is a matter of concern and debate? Was the government putting the ladder on the wrong wall? What did this in effect do? While there has been further legislation to protect the woman’s property rights, the Dowry Abolition Act in its aftermath made the woman a legacy destitute as soon as she was married, both in her parental home and in her bridal home. She held no inheritance rights to any property and therefore economically weaker than her husband. Her parents willed the property to the male heirs as socially and psychologically they were not tuned to bequeath property to daughters, as that would result in dilution of the family name. Did this in any way help the status of women anywhere? Did this make marriages more unequal as the woman now had only an emotional relationship with her parental family with no financial rights, while she became dependent on her husband’s family for his rights in parental property. In a dual income couple’s life she increasingly spurned the husband’s rights to his share in family property, as her inequality in inheritance put her in an inferior position. This strained the husband’s umbilical relationships leading to further stress between the couple.
The government, being still male dominated, instead of looking to address the balance in a marital relationship (putting first things first) was looking to protect the woman’s non-existent rights. Whatever rights existed had already been taken away in 1961. To overcome the supposed deficiency in the Dowry acts the Draconian 498A was enacted – the Bangalore Techies disastrous end is a direct result of this Act, as per his suicide note.
What is Section 498 A? It says ‘Whoever, being the husband or a relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to three years and shall also be liable to fine.” In practice cruelty is taken to be any demand for dowry. This section is non-bailable, non-compoundable (complaint that cannot be quashed), and cognizable (arrest without investigation or warrant) on report from a woman or close relative.
There is already a SIFF (Save India Family Foundation) of husband’s harassed under this Act for other marital discords. This act has in the name of saving the woman from harassment and giving her a shield has put her in a position where the honorable Justices of the S.C. had to warn against ‘Legal Terrorism’ for misuse of this Act. “Dowry Law is a shield, not an assassin’s weapon,” they said.
What is the result of the Act to protect a woman’s rights in her marriage? Has it destroyed the institution of marriage itself? Has it put the male partner in the marriage to terminate the spouse rather than the marriage, in the fear that one is no worse than the other? Will this lead to more and more ‘Living Together’ ‘Partnerships’ or ‘Common Law Marriage’.
This is what happened in the west. As more and more marriages ended in divorce, with the resultant mess of division of income, wealth, children’s rights, visitation rights, less and less people got married. Instead they started to live together in partnerships. Where ever they needed some form of social sanction and legal documentation, they resorted to a Common Law Marriage. They were seeking solutions for the end of marriage before they even started!!
Will we see the same in India? If a couple is not married the Dowry Abolition Act and Section 498A are not applicable, regardless of the quantum of harassment. There will be no fear of legal harassment as they are not married. The woman does not have to live as a second class citizen in her own home. Her own family cannot treat her as someone who has been ‘married off’ and therefore one less number in the family inheritance list. So will there be DINM for at least the dual income couples? Your comments are welcome.