Marriage Without Consent: Why Can't Even Educated Women Say No?
Women cannot be truly liberated through education, income, or legal rights alone if they remain psychologically identified with socially conditioned ideas of “womanhood.” While external barriers may fall, inner bondage persists through inherited identities, roles, and expectations. Real freedom begins not by rejecting the body, but by seeing oneself primarily as a conscious human being rather than a gendered identity, because lasting liberation starts at the root of self-identification.
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Questioner: Achara Ji, we, as medical professionals, often come across women who, when asked about, say, their medical history or even menstrual details, are baffled and refer to their husbands or in-laws for decisions or to take their decisions.
My sister, during her residency in gynecology, met patients on a daily basis like this, who simply say, “Are mere mard ko bula do.”* And will not be able to recount what their test reports were…
Acharya Prashant: The patient would say that?
Questioner: Yes. What their results were, what their present condition is. So, in such a society where perhaps it's not the lack of intelligence or education, what truly does freedom or independence for women mean? And if marriage is such a structure that pulls them back into, pulls them back into being dependent on someone else, on another family, where exactly does education or income stand finally?
