So recently I was having a talk with one of my friends and she asked me that why is it that in our culture women are forced to do all solah shringar and men don't. And why is it that women must wear Mangal Sutra and sindoor but men have no symbols of marriage at all. That's when I realised that we actually have no idea about the rules that men have to follow.
Actually solah shringar was never compulsory. They were just way for women to look pretty that's all. I don't know why it became compulsory. Because there is no scripture that said it is compulsory. Well we have a habit of taking everything to extreme so well...yeah, and also patriarchy. Men also had their own ways of Shringar which no one talks about. Like the tilak, Kajal (Anjana), Grooming practices for hair and beard, Pagdi, uttaariya (actually the way you drape them also talks about your identity), ornaments, perfumes etc. All of these were shringar but well we stopped giving importance to it because well they 'get in the way' and also thanks to shift in our perspective of masculinity.
And when it comes to symbol of marriage I think we have 2 major symbols of marriage for women that is mangalasutra and sindoor and I think the rest are region or culture specific. For example, the bangles thing where you have to wear it for some amount of days is not followed in a lot of south indian traditions in the same way the toe rings is also very culture specific. But the mangalsutra and sindoor is something that is noticed in every culture. So these 2 are the symbols ( if there are more than that then I'm sorry I just wrote from what I understood and read).
And there are symbols for men too. Like the man is supposed to be wearing six strings of yagnopavitam/ janeu at his marriage. Like when he is a bachelor he wears 3 strings. At the time of marriage they add 3 more strings. so total 6. and then at the birth of the first child he has to add 3 more strings to his janeu which makes it 9. So yeah technically there is a symbol for marriage and back then they used to wear only one cloth around their upper body making it visible but later it got covered which change in dressing styles.
I just think that these symbols of marriage had reasons behind it. I am not sure the exact reason for sindoor tho but on a very meaningful reason is to say that she married so no way you could hit on her. Just like how today we wanna wear wedding rings to give out a message that they are taken or married. And the janeu is for men. looking at their janeu people must recognise that this is a married man, or a married man with kids. But later with rise in patriarchy and bit of masala from invasions they just became rigid, imposing, senseless traditions. Oh yeah, based on the region ( I'll speak of South India because I'm more familiar with it) few culture have toes rings for men too, which were later given up because well....shoes. and also few culture have a wedding ring of sort that the man wears which is gifted by the father of the bride. So these are also few symbols
But yeah...I think it is still wrong to Impose these symbols of anyone. Like you can't force a women to wear of all them but not do it on men. They also have things they are supposed to be following which we don't pay much attention to. At the end of the day it's your personal choice. You wish to wear them wear it. No? don't wear it. But also don't demean a culture without knowing or studying about it. And if you feel that any symbol of marriage is oppressive then it's not just this but also wedding rings. If you are not willing to show that you are taken or married then don't expect that from the other gender too. Men if you are not ready to wear your wedding ring and show that you are married, stop expecting the women to wear sindoor and mangalsutra. Same for women if you are not ready to wear either sindoor or mangalsutra then don't expect men to wear their wedding rings to show that they are married. I'm saying wedding rings for men because well we are having hybrid wedding these days and also that is probably the only way to visibly show that they are married in today's generation.
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
