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Marital Instability and its Impact on Women and Children of Bangladesh.
By Anima Rani Nath (PhD) Assistant Professor Social Work Govt. Shahid Sharawardi College Laxmibazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Article outline
Introduction; Conceptual Framework; Objectives of the article; Status of Women in Bangladesh; Pattern of Marriage in Bangladesh; Socio-Economic Background; Causes of Marital Instability; Impact of Marital Instability; Conclusion and Policy Implication
INTRODUCTION
Marriage is the oldest social obligation in human society. It is a social contract between two individuals to become husband and wife that unites their lives legally, gives legitimacy to sexual relationship and reproduction for legitimate children. Many societies permit anthropologist term privilege sexual relationship with sisters in law and with grand daughter such privilege are quite forbidden among the Hindus and the Muslims in Bangladesh, without marital ties in the relationship of husband and wife (Sarker, 1997: 18). Marital instability is a common phenomenon throughout the world and it happens widely in Bangladesh especially among lower income people. Nature, causes and intensity of marital instability vary from one society to another.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The concept of marital instability is associated with separation, divorce and widowhood. Separation and divorce are social phenomenon, which are created by the husband or the wife or of both but widowhood is beyond the control of human being. It is related to death and thus universal. Many marriages remain shaky for a long time; some of them recover equilibrium and become cohesive again, this shaky period may lead to separation. Separation may be two categories. Where the husband and the wife reside separately without resolving their marital tie is called physical separation. On the other hand, where couple lives together in the same household showing external modesty but without having biological and psychological relations is called mental separation. In most of the cases of mental separation, the spouse remains detached from coitus and other sexual intimacies. This sort of separation exists among the spouses to whom divorce is prestige concern. On the other hand, when marriage is dissolved in legal point of view is called divorce. But when it is dissolved by death is called widowhood. The term marital instability is used to refer to the process whereby marriages breakdown through separation, desertion or divorce and where relevant to the subsequent re-partnering of the individuals are concerned (Iesmin and Sarah, 1998:89). The concept of marital instability is confined here in connection with desertion, separation and divorce. The concept of women in this study is associated with the ladies who are victims of marital instability due to separation and divorce by their husbands. The children are defined here who are also victims of marital instability of their parents and they are below 14 years of age.
OBJECTIVES OF THE ARTICLE
The article has two major trust; the first one is find out the nature and cause of marital instability and the second one is to examine its impacts on women and children are involved. The specific objectives of the article are stated below. 1. To get knowledge the socio-economic backgrounds of the women who are victim of marital instability. 2. To find out the nature and causes of marital instability of the women who are in difficult circumstances. 3. To explore the problems of separated and divorced women and their children. 4. To examine how the children are being abused and exploited by their parents, relatives, and the community people due to marital instability of their parents; and 5. To know the survival process of the women and their children who are victim of marital instability. 6. To help the society implementing the recommendations. 7. To grow awareness regarding social responsibilities.
STATUS OF WOMEN IN BANGLADESH
In the area under this study, woman is assigned the role of wife and mother; to adjust with this ideal role she is given a position of inferiority, dependence, subjugation and seclusion in relation to man; to fit into this position she is expected to possess the qualities of obedience, patience, endurance and sacrifice.
Woman is to perform only such function as can be performed within the household. As wife she has to do the domestic work like cooking, sweeping, cleaning, knitting, and vegetable gardening. She is also expected to provide all kinds of comfort to her husband through services. As mother, she is expected to bear the responsibility of proper upbringing of the children. She is supposed to nurse the children in infancy, guard them against evils at later childhood and supervise them as they grow up. In Bangladesh woman’s role and status are closely bound up with motherhood. Child bearing is highly valued both by the family and the society. Inability to bear an issue is socially looked down upon and a barren woman is restrained by socially imposed disabilities and often discarded by husband made to accept co-wives. Male superiority and female inferiority is an accepted social norm in Bangladesh. Daughter, sister, wife or mother, whatever maybe her position, she has to be under the guardianship of male relations. She is neither allowed nor expected to be independent. Female inferiority and dependence emanate from the social misperception that woman is physically weak, intellectually poor, mentally inconsistent, timid and irrational and psychologically emotional. Such a creature cannot exist except under constant protection and supervision of man who is supposed to be physically strong, assertive, rational, intelligent and calculative.
Woman’s position of inferiority is secured in Pirojpur district as well as in Bangladesh by a system of seclusion. She is not supposed to appear in public and her beauty should not be exposed. At puberty, her mobility is restricted within the close kin group that includes brothers, brother-in-laws, uncles, and first cousins. She is not, however, allowed to be free with cousins. A woman cannot appear in public without being veiled. The female voice should not reach male ears outside the household. She must therefore speak in a low voice. Girls are admonished by their mother, “you are female and should speak in a soft voice”, the virtue of softness and submissiveness is thus inoculated in the girls.
The image of ideal womanhood sets some essential “qualities” for woman in Bangladesh. As daughter and sister, in comparison to son and brother, a girl has to be painstaking. As wife she should have patience and tolerance to bear a husband’s dominance and authority. A wife is expected to be devoted, sincere and obedient to her husband. As a mark of obedience, she is to listen to her husband without protest, touch his feet, eat the leftover on his plate and should never utter his name. It is believed that for a wife heaven lies at the feet of the husband. The quality of sacrifice is to be displayed by every woman. The sister must sacrifice for brother, the wife must sacrifice for the husband, and the mother must sacrifice everything for her children. Every woman must possess all the “qualities” because every one will become a daughter, wife and mother as she passes through different ages and different situations. Economically, each and every woman in the area under study is dependent upon the males in their different life cycles. Even we working woman could not spend her income without the consent of her husband.
PATTERN OF MARRIAGE IN BANGLADESH
Marriage has traditionally been strongly prescribed, both religiously and socially, in Bangladesh. Islam strongly opposes life-long celibacy and favors marriage as means to emotional and sexual gratification; as a mechanism of tension reduction, legitimate procreation, and social placement; as an approach to inter-family alliance and group solidarity, (Ati, 1977:54). Similarly, in the Hindu traditional marriage is necessarily the basis of social organization and the foundation of important legal rights and obligations. It is the last of the ten sacraments enjoyed by Hindu region for purifying the body and for the regeneration of men (Rakshit, 1985:75). Marriage as an institution fulfils a number of important functions in traditional Bangladesh society, including: control of sexuality and satisfaction of sexual needs; conference of social identity; bearing and socializing the next generation; working as a production unit; confirmation of old-age support; and building social networks and gaining economic advantage. In Bangladesh marriage has long been the only acceptable option for the great majority of men and women. Marriage not only enables individuals to enter into a sexual relationship without risk of social ostracism, but also confers social identity, particularly for women. An adult woman who is unmarried is anomalous. Adult men, too, are strongly expected to marry and to produce offspring. Traditionally, the age at first marriage has been near puberty for girls in Bangladesh and there has been a strong emphasis on the preservation of female purity and virginity prior to wedlock.
The rural people expressed the opinion that a girl should marry as soon as she reaches puberty, otherwise her value will be reduced in the marriage market. They considered the appropriate age for a boy to marry to be higher than that for a girl, which is around 20 years. These ideas about age at marriage are shaped by perceptions about appropriate gender roles. However, despite these ideas, ages at marriage were found to vary quite a lot in practice. In this study, individuals who had married for the first time in the field work age at marriage varied between 11 years and 22 years for women and between 15 years and 32 years for men. Over 50 percent of women were married for the first time at age 16 or older (i.e. clearly beyond the expressed ideal of puberty.
In Bangladesh, marriage has traditionally been a matter of concern for the whole family, since it has social and economic implications for the wider kin group as well as the couple involved. According to traditional norms and values, Bangladeshi parents should arrange the marriages of their sons and daughters. Domingo and King report a similar picture for other South Asian settings, stating, ‘In these societies the main actors in the marriage decisions are older kin, who are motivated to control the nature of transfer between families’ (1992:96). In selecting suitable partner, lineage groups (goshti) are a key consideration in both the Hindu and Muslim communities of Bangladesh. In addition, the personal qualities of the prospective partner are taken into account. A man’s quality or status is traditionally measured by considering achieved qualities (income, occupation, education). In contrast, a prospective bride’s worth depends more on her inherited, physical qualities (appearance, figure, skin color). Arranged marriages (samajik biye) are still the ideal among the majority of rural people. Parents aim to follow the traditional selection criteria and try to arrange a marriage to someone who is from their own district of origin in the hope of avoiding cultural maladjustment. However, finding a suitable partner is often problematic because of heterogeneity of the population and the difficulty in gaining information about an individual’s background and origin. In general, the perceived potential for a match to provide economic security is given the greatest priority.
Despite efforts to preserve traditional marriage arrangement procedures, there is evidence that is called love marriages. Love marriages are becoming more common among the younger generation.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND
The Socio-economic background includes the age structure, marital status, level of education, occupational structure, source of income, and living arrangements of the woman who are victims of marital instability. It has been found that marital instability in terms of desertion and divorce takes place within the marital life 4-6 years. A significant number of them involve in income generating activities under NGO programs. The women are also supplement the family income from the credit program. All most all the women were dependent on their husband’s income. But when they were victim of marital instability they had to depend on their relatives, neighbors or charity. Consequently the women become destitute. Many of them were remarried or remained in the same position. Many of the children of these women could not adjust in second families and as a result they were street and working children.
CAUSES OF MARITAL INSTABILITY
The non-payment of dowry is one of the causes of marital instability. Women from the selected households have lost their partners or living separately for the non-payment of dowry. Failure to pay promised dowry during marriage is mentioned as non-payment dowry. Polygamy causes marital instability and discord. In the semi urban society these problems are caused by the unequal socio-economic status of wives and resource sharing between family members. Wives are often dissatisfied, as they do not feel they are getting sufficient attention from their husbands or an equal share of resources. In some cases, these problems lead to wives living separately from husband. A wife’s ability to extract more attention and resources from her husband depends on her tolerance, wisdom, calculated nature or beauty.
Rumor and faction can destroy marital ties. There are a number of factions representing different regions and districts of origin. This factionalism leads to the deliberate spreading of rumors to discredit members of a rival group. These rumors and factions can make an individual’s life miserable and can lead to marital discord and breakdown. Rumors and gossip are easily spread due to housing density. Confidential household information can be easily spread around the house by neighbors overhearing conversations through the walls. This can exacerbate marital conflicts. Lack of privacy can mean that everyone is aware of the marital discord.
IMPACT OF MARITAL INSTABILITY
Divorced women are selling their labor more than the currently married women. It indicates that loss of a husband is not only the loss of economic security but also the social insecurity is associated with it. Older women are more vulnerable than the younger deserted and divorced women in the patriarchal social system. Women often loss assets when they are separated from their husbands as husbands often refuse to give women an equal share of household resources due to divorce.
The economic status of female-headed household varies according to their composition. Mothers living alone with young children are often economically vulnerable. These households usually depend on entirely on the mother for income. In times of sickness or when work is not available, the household will have no money to spend on daily consumption. In this circumstance the women have to combat poverty and even improve their household status by their handlebar. Also children enter the labor forces as soon as they are able to earn. It has been found that divorced or separated women often suffer economic hardship Blanche (1996) found that such poverty affected divorced or separated women all over Bangladesh. For the children living with these women, economic necessity can push then into the labor market. Children of divorced parents are likely to face greater poverty because women generally do not own the land, and are highly discriminated against in the labor market having less work opportunity than men, and getting systematically lower wage when they work.
It has been found that the mean income is lower and participation of child labor force is higher among female-headed households (Salway et al. 1998). The high rates of child labor in female headed households are likely to have longer term implications for children’s development as social and human resources. The situation of female headed households is especially bad if the household head is old disabled or unemployed.
Divorced men fail to contribute to their children’s upbringing often means that divorced women have to bring up children on very limited resources. This problem can be resolved by remarriage. However, children are often badly cared for by stepfather. It has also been found that the children of divorced, separated and deserted mothers are deprived of education, proper socialization, inadequate food including other basic needs and civic facilities. Dropout rate of the children at primary level is significantly high.
CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATION
Marital instability in terms of desertion, separation and divorce is a common phenomenon among the Muslims especially lower income groups. But its intensity differs from one society to another or in the different signets of the same society. Marital instability is associated with the non payment of dowry, non registration of marriage, practice of polygamy, infertility and poverty. The women and the children are the main victims of marital instability, because the women are illiterate, unskilled and unemployed. They involved in the household activities and rearing and caring of children and other members of the family. In these circumstances, the victims of marital instability face economic as well as social insecurity. Many of them have no alternative but begging. The children of those women became the victims of street and working children. The findings of the study will help to contribute to the knowledge of policy makers, planners, administrators, and academicians to formulate realistic policies. So the victims can lead a quality life. To reach this desired goal the following policies are recommended.
1. The registration of marriage should be compulsory. So that the deserted, separated and divorced women can get help from law enforcement department. 2. Polygamy marriage should be restricted my imposing law in order to avoid separation, desertion and divorce. 3. Income generation program should be undertaken in order to provide employment for the women who are victims of marital instability. 4. A shelter home should be established in order to provide shelter along with vocational training for the working and street children 5. Basic education facilities should be given for the destitute children. 6. Local level initiative should be undertaken to stop marital instability.