Kanya Daan: The Need to Let Go of Sexist Traditions

By Manya Dudeja

10-year-old Shruti hopped onto her father’s lap and asked him if she could paint her room blue. Her father lovingly cupped her face and said, “Of course! Colour your room the way you wish to, but only when you go to your own home.” The little girl was struck. She asked him if this wasn’t her own home, rebelling at the statement. This became a scene that the family would laughingly recall at the dinner table. A child’s innocence and immaturity, they said. Only if they knew that 10-year-old Shruti could sense the patriarchy.

Often termed as “harmless,” sexist comments made at family gatherings, calling the female children of the house “paraya dhan” or telling them how they will “go to their own home” one day, are initial visible signs of a deeply imbibed patriarchal culture that looks at women as objects of male satisfaction.

According to Section 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, a Hindu marriage may be solemnised in accordance with the customary rites and ceremonies including the Saptapadi as well. One of the most important rites in a Hindu marriage is the Kanya Daan—Kanya, meaning woman, and Daan meaning given as charity. The etymological meaning of the word itself is attached with a sexist connotation. The very idea that a father can pass off his daughter in marriage as charity deprecates the position of women in society. It looks at women as something you can control and give away. The popular belief that Kanya Daan is the highest form of Daan in the world and that only fortunate people get to perform it romanticises the idea of having control over women and having the power to put them under the control of someone else. It ignores their autonomy by looking at them as objects which were earlier under the control of the father and would now pass on under the control of their husband. In other words, the very fact that choosing her gotra is not a woman’s choice and will be decided and be dependent on the men in her life makes it a sexist and exclusionary concept that snatches away from women their right to preserve their identity.

Then we have those who defend patriarchy and claim that it is an ‘ordered’ system which structures society rather than victimising women. Of course, it maintains order! After all, it teaches one group of people to stay silent and the other to oppress and dominate, a society where one group will be caged while the other uses the caged ‘human’ for its entertainment and leisure.

There will be no clash in such a society for one will forever be oppressed with the other forever oppressing, leaving no scope for disharmony or discord.

I support the idea put forth by Mohey’s advertisement on Bridal lehengas that questions the concept of Kanya Daan. The protagonist asks the viewer if she’s ‘something’ that can be given out as charity. As an alternative to Kanya Daan, she talks about a new idea called Kanya Maan i.e., the respect of women. These kinds of advertisements are not radical or way ahead of their time, it’s the people who view this as an attack on their religion who are catching up with time. Perhaps, it stems from an insecurity that recognises the flaws in these ideas and a fear that this recognition may come with a movement to rectify these positions. This isn’t to say that religion is flawed or there is something wrong with it, it is to say that certain religious practices have to be done away with because they come from a time when women were seen as second-class citizens and their freedom of choice had no place in society.

Religion is not static, it has always evolved and taken the shape of its devotees; it becomes the way it is practised. Tracing religion to its purest form might, perhaps, end religion itself. Hence, this is to evolve and shape religion as we see it today, in a society where we aspire to have women as equal citizens, where the people who have control over women are women themselves. It is important that while taking forward the positive values of religion, we leave behind the limiting traditions that fettered women and continue to do so years after.