Whom to blame?

First, I will blame something which is not there in your list: it is the baseless fear of that nameless, faceless entity called Society which we Indians are so scared of. We Indians suffer from a serious disease called the What-will-people-say Syndrome because of which many of us, even when we want to, don't do the right thing for ourselves. We give more importance to what the second cousin of the wife of the neighbour will think, rather than our own happiness. Thus you have here a father who forces his daughter to sacrifice her dreams and 'marrying her off' to anyone who would have her.

Second I will blame to dowry system. That is the worst evil in our country and a national shame and while illegal, it still exists. Why? Because we place such a strong emphasis on getting a girl married once she reaches a certain age. From the moment girls are old enough it is taught that they have to get married and that is the be all and end all of her life. And for that to happen, the father has to amass a large quantity of wealth to 'buy' her a good groom, failing which she is condemned to the Hell called 'Spinsterhood'. It is taught from an early age that the only way the Indian girl gets any form of respect is by getting the 'married' tag. We are not taught to respect ourselves as individuals first. In any developed country will a girl ever be taught like this? No. Mostly she would be independent after finishing school and earning her own money and not sitting at home waiting for marriage proposals. No matter how much economic progress India makes, I would say this: unless Indians treat girls as a human and as individuals with rights, I will not consider India in any way developed.

I would not blame the mother of Gopi, because she herself was not in favour of the marriage.(So she doesn't want her son to get married as she has a feeling that even if he gets married also, the future wife will not well respect him.) She was single mother and raised her children as best as she could. She was coerced by the father of Anasuya to marry her son to his daughter. So greater blame goes Anasuya's father. He disposed off his daughter like she was a useless commodity. But then he was a victim to the points mentioned above: fear of society and dowry.

I would blame Gopi to some extent for treating his wife badly. But then he might have felt that he was being married to this girl because of the father's desperation and not because of she liked him. The anger he felt on her father, he showed it on her.

Anasuya I would not blame so much. Because she is the biggest victim of Patriarchy. Do you think anyone would have listened to her even if she had objected to this marriage? She might have been raised to obey her parents and agree to whatever they ordered her to do even if she did not want it. She might have been Socially conditioned that the only life for a woman was married life and nothing else. If this incident had happened like 20-25 years ago, I don't think te average Indian women was even this empowered as we are now.

If Anasuya became hard-hearted after all this I do not blame her. Everyone has coping mechanisms to deal with difficult situations. This was her mechanism. She was hurt by all people around her. First by her father who told a lie and married her off to someone who no one would have wanted. Then when she accepted her fate, Gopi treated her badly for no fault of hers.

And lastly, I have a question for you: When you say her daughters are "well settled", do you mean that she too just married them off? Or did she help them get educated and make them independent? Because in India when we say 'well settled' daughter it simply means getting them married off to a man who is working and earning good salary. Only very few educated/enlightened parents think whether the daughter is happy with their decision or not.

 

I blame the society (people) for calling her a bad woman (not on your list). Who are they to judge her.
God dealt her a lemon and she made lemonade out of it by the only way she knew. If anusaya knows she is right to her conscious than she should not give a damn to what society says.

 

Avidlearner, I would blame the society. But when we say the society- isn't it just an abstract idea. What and who makes a society? Why does a parent have to give dowry? Why does someone have to get married by a certain age?

I would blame every man who accepts dowry from his ILs.
I would blame every girl who accepts being given away with the dowry.
The quintessential Ils who ask for dowry.
Even people who ask what a new bride brought in dowry.
people who ask the parents of a girl why their DD isn't married yet.
I basically blame us because we are who make a society.
It's easy to play the blame game but difficult to do something about the situation.

I have been married for 18 yrs and even now when I go to my parents' home, my MIL expects me to tell her what gifts they gave me. According to her I am a bad DIL, because I don't tell her! I think it's because it's an accepted norm. When is this going to change and who is going to change it?

With the Anna Hazare movement being so successful, I think a new movement should be started to bring reforms in this area, starting with the ban on the saas-bahu TV serials.

 

i would blame Anasuya`s father.....awful man...

 

I would first of all blame Anusuya's father
All he cared was his name/fame while getting his daughter married into an influential family and he never bothered about the happiness of his daughter at all ,to live with deaf/blind inefficient person.
He started the whole mess here!! Actually he is the one ,who is inefficient here!
& Kudos to Anusuya who unlike her father, lived for her kids

 

I do not think you can blame every girl who agreed to marry with dowry. Till a few years back parents decided and the girl's is just a formality. It is the society made of neighbors, relatives who are to blame. But one thing I agree BAN THE SAAS BAHU serials.

 

i blame only this - the fear!! so basically it was the father.

and then i agree to every word what monita said - PERIOD.