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The pre-marital counselling programme recently launched in Karnataka by the National Commission for Women (NCW) aims to be progressive, but leaves troubling gaps. It also raises the larger question of actually encouraging open communication before marriage in a society where such conversations are viewed with suspicion by families.
The NCW, on August 10, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Karnataka government to set up Pre-Marital Communication Centres (PMCCs) at each of the 175 Santwana Kendras run by the state government. The MOU was signed under the NCW’s ‘Tere Mere Sapne’ (Your dreams and mine) initiative. In Kannada, the programme is called ‘Koodi Baalona’, meaning living together.
Under the programme, the NCW will provide standardised training modules, train the trainers, and monitor implementation. Training sessions were held across the state in Bengaluru on August 10.
Addressing the media, Chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Women Nagalakshmi Choudhary said that the programme would help young couples discuss issues before their wedding with trained counsellors, aiming to avoid problems in the future.
Marriage as a journey
One can find instruction manuals about almost everything, but good resources on navigating relationships or marriages in one’s own language are hard to come by.
Given that gap, the NCW’s initiative is a welcome step, as it suggests that marriage is a journey, not a goal or destination. It encourages healthy ideas such as establishing mutual communication before marriage and making decisions together.
While the programme naturally does not talk about the fundamental lack of agency in Indian marriages, it attempts to orient people towards thinking of marriage and marital relations more holistically. It places emphasis on respect, understanding, and healthy ways of expressing one’s emotions. It suggests acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and assessing one’s work and life balance.
One section of the booklet asks the prospective partners to respond to a set of 14 behaviours categorised as red flags (unhealthy behaviours), green flags (healthy behaviour), and yellow flags (scenarios requiring more communication between partners).
For instance, ‘When we fight, my partner stops talking’ is categorised as a yellow flag, while ‘We mutually discuss individual freedom and respect it’ is a green flag. Checking each other’s mobile phones without permission and ridicule are red flags. This could prompt conversation about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
However, a statement on sexual agency is somewhat unclear: “My life partner tells me that there’s no need to say no to physical intimacy as we are getting married.”
The precise, intended meaning is unclear. And it doesn’t offer clarity on the right to say no to physical intimacy in any form after marriage.
A woman’s refusal to have sex with her husband is a right that has not yet been recognised by the Indian Parliament. In more than one report, the Law Commission has wrung its hands in despair at the thought of removing the exception granted to men. However, high courts have been somewhat more progressive on this question.
Marital rape has been exempted from India’s rape laws since the Indian Penal Code was framed in 1860. In post-independence India, the issue was first examined by the Law Commission in its 42nd report in 1971, where the commission refrained from criminalising marital rape. Instead, it preferred the term marital misbehaviour.
It also noted the exemption should not be granted in case the couple are separated. In its 172nd report in 2000, confronted with the question again, the Commission refused to recommend removal of the exemption, saying that it would amount to “interference with the marital relationship”.
The Justice Verma Commission, however, did recommend that the exemption be removed. It was set up to look into legal reforms after the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder.
The section on assessing one’s work-life balance could potentially be a double-edged sword if selectively applied to women.
For instance, statements such as ‘Spending more time at work is affecting my family and personal life’ and ‘I think it is better to give up work if handling family responsibilities requires it’ could be used against women who might want to work after marriage. (Individuals would have to indicate the degree to which they agree or disagree with the statements.)
But if tackled well by a trained counsellor, it could help individuals identify their own and their partner’s needs, wants, and values. This has the potential to help couples make informed decisions, except for the reality that young people in India, women even more so, have very little agency when it comes to deciding on life partners and the terms and conditions of marriage.
The strangest part of the booklet is perhaps the section on deciding what is negotiable and what’s not. Among the points on that list are whether to live in the heart of the city or on the periphery and whether online purchases are acceptable.
Some of the issues raised in this section are complex but nonetheless important, such as whether one will work full-time or part-time after marriage, whether festivals have to be celebrated according to tradition or whether there is scope for change, whether social drinking is allowed at home or not, and whether one will live in a nuclear family or joint family.
One of the most important questions of a marriage—whether to have children or not, and if yes, how many—is simply not discussed here. This sends the message that choice in the matter of children is simply non-existent. Naturally, any lack of discussion on this question has more adverse effects on women than men.
Poor design?
Although the programme is envisioned as a pre-marital counselling programme, its design does not appear to be very well thought out. The content too appears to be a clumsy Kannada translation of material that might originally have been created in English.
The programme booklet’s content and what it seeks to initiate within India’s conservative ideas on marriage cannot be achieved by a one-day counselling session with people who’ve undergone only a day’s training but are otherwise ill-equipped to handle the complexities of intimate relationships, that too, in a society that rewards obedience to rules laid down by parents, caste, and class.
Several statements and scenarios in the booklet would require a couple to spend enough time with one another in order to gauge behaviours when angry or upset, or whether one is spying on the other. However, spending time together before marriage is almost impossible when most marriages in the country are not only arranged by families, but any attempt at communication between the couple before marriage is often simply prohibited.
There is no clarity on whether there is, instead, scope for a series of counselling programme sessions which would help individuals understand themselves and their prospective partners. Even if such a series of counselling sessions were possible, it is near impossible for young people, especially women, to make informed decisions based on their assessments.
