MARRIAGE IN BANGLADESH
Bengali wedding
Age at first marriage: 23.8 for men and for 16 women (compared to 33.4 for men and 31.2 for women in Finland and 22.1 for men and 17.9 for women on Nepal) [Source: Wikipedia and Wikipedia ]
Percent of young women between 15 and 19 who are married: 51 percent, compared to 3.9 percent in the United States. Legal Age for marriage: 21 for men and 18 for women without parental consent. With parental consent there are no age limits. [Source: UNICEF, United Nations Data data.un.org]
Teenage marriage is a big problem in Bangladesh. Ranking in the top 10 among countries with the worst child marriage rates, the country is home to 38 million child brides, including currently married girls and women who were first married in child hood. Of these 15 million married before they were 15. Fifty-one percent of women in Bangladesh were married before their 18th birthday. [Source: UNICEF data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage ]
Marriages between cousins are common. It has traditionally not been unusual for a couple to have never seen each other before their wedding day. More and more couples are breaking from the tradition of arranged marriage and marrying out of love. Educated couples get married relatively late, often in their late 20s.
Marriage is a civil contract rather than a religious sacrament in Islam, and the parties to the contract represent the interests of families rather than the direct personal interests of the prospective spouses. A marriage must be entered into with the full and free consent of both individuals. Under Islamic law a marriage cannot be validated without the consent of both the bride and groom. After this consent is obtained, preparations are made for the wedding festivities
Of the total population in 1981, an estimated 34 million were married. A total of 19 million citizens of marriageable age were single or had never married, 3 million were widowed, and 322,000 were divorced. Although the majority of married men (10 million) had only one wife, there were about 580,000 households, between 6 and 10 percent of all marriages, in which a man had two or more wives. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989]
Bengali Marriage
Bengali marriages have traditionally been arranged with customs dependent on whether the families involved were Muslims or Hindus. For example, polygamy is allowed and marriages between cousins are fairly common among Muslims while polygamy is discouraged and matrilineal cousin marriage are forbidden among Hindus.
Among Hindus, marriage generally takes place within restrictions. Women marrying upwards in caste is not forbidden but marrying downward is strongly discouraged. Bengali Muslims are not hemmed in by caste restrictions but social rank and status are important in the selection of a partner. Although cousin marriages are allowed there is no evidence that they are preferred and their incidence is not high. Among both Hindus and Muslims, newlyweds generally move in with the groom’s family.
The divorce rate among Muslims is generally higher because divorces are easier to obtain. The remarriage rate among widows and widowers is much higher among Muslims. Islam does not discourage widow remarriage like Hinduism does.
In Bengali society there is minimal social interaction between men and women before marriage. If two young people are interested in each other, they make arrangements to meet through their parents.
Married Life in Bangladesh
Holud wedding party henna
hand decorations in Dhaka
Typical spouses knew each other only slightly, if at all, before marriage. Although marriages between cousins and other more distant kin occurred frequently, segregation of the sexes generally kept young men and women of different households from knowing each other well. Marriage functioned to ensure the continuity of families rather than to provide companionship to individuals, and the new bride's relationship with her mother-in-law was probably more important to her well-being than her frequently impersonal relationship with her husband. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989]
Brides often move in with the parents of the groom. According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: “Women traditionally are in charge of household affairs and are not encouraged to move outside the immediate neighborhood unaccompanied. Thus, most women's economic and social lives revolve around the home, children, and family. Islamic practice reserves prayer inside the mosque for males only; women practice religion within the home. [Source: “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
“The society is patriarchal in nearly every area of life, although some women have achieved significant positions of political power at the national level. For ordinary women, movement is confined, education is stressed less than it is for men, and authority is reserved for a woman's father, older brother, and husband. Men are expected to be the heads of their households and to work outside the home. Men often do the majority of the shopping, since that requires interaction in crowded markets. Men spend a lot of time socializing with other men outside the home.
Miti Sanjana wrote in the Dhaka Tribune: “Unfortunately, our society does not recognise a wife’s contributions to the marital home or the sacrifices she makes. A woman works from dawn to dusk to build her home. Sometimes she does not even have the time to take a break. She works just as hard as her husband, and yet the husband occasionally abuses her. Unable to endure the abuse, she sometimes seeks shelter at her parental home, but they force her to return. Thus, she is forced to consent to her husband’s second marriage as she has no other option.” [Source: Miti Sanjana, Dhaka Tribune. August 28, 2017]
Arranged Marriages in Bangladesh
Arranged marriages are the norm. It is estimated that 80 percent of all marriages in South Asia are arranged by the bride and groom's parents. According to a favorite expression: The wedding comes first, then the romance.
In Bangladesh, parents ordinarily select spouses for their children, although men frequently exercise some influence over the choice of their spouses. In middle-class urban families men negotiate their own marriages. Only in the most sophisticated elite class does a woman participate in her own marriage arrangements. Marriage generally is made between families of similar social standing, although a woman might properly marry a man of somewhat higher status. Financial standing came to outweigh family background in the late twentieth century in any case. Often a person with a good job in a Middle Eastern country was preferred over a person of highly regarded lineage. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989]
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: Marriage usually “takes place when the parents, particularly the father, decide that a child should be married. Men marry typically around age twenty-five or older, and women marry between ages fifteen and twenty; thus the husband is usually at least ten years older than the wife. Muslims allow polygynous marriage, but its occurrence is rare and is dependent on a man's ability to support multiple households. [Source:“Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
“A parent who decides that a child is ready to marry may contact agencies, go-betweens, relatives, and friends to find an appropriate mate. Of immediate concern are the status and characteristics of the potential in-law's family. Generally an equal match is sought in terms of family economic status, educational background, and piousness. A father may allow his child to choose among five or six potential mates, providing the child with the relevant data on each candidate. It is customary for the child to rule out clearly unacceptable candidates, leaving a slate of candidates from which the father can choose. An arrangement between two families may be sealed with an agreement on a dowry and the types of gifts to be made to the groom. Among the educated the dowry practice is no longer prevalent.”
Views on Arranged Marriages
In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “Generally father is the head of the family and children have to obey their parents and to carry out their orders. While girls and boys get maturity, guardians negotiate on behalf of them and arrange marriage, which is called settled marriage in Bangladesh. This was and is prevalent and approved in society. Now-a-days, romantic lovemarriage occurs in towns, yet social acceptance is not wide and still considered as an offence. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]
One man told the Washington Post, "The people who love us the most, our mothers and fathers, aunties and uncles, pick someone they feel will match our spirit and complement us. They know us best and want our happiness...Then, once we are married, we have the whole community of family that wants the marriage to succeed. They are there to help the couple, to listen, to be sympathetic."
Another man told the Washington Post, "Our romance starts after we get married and begin to find out all these wonderful things about each other. I come home from work and the woman I will spend the rest of my life with is there. We sit down to dinner and learn about each other. She likes roses. She likes to read. Who is this woman? I tell you, it is very exciting."
Sometimes the man will have more say in choice of a marriage partner. Sometimes in urban families he will negotiate the marriage contact with the bride’s father. Prospective brides often have little say in the matter. These days current financial standing has precedence over family backgrounds.
Polygamy in Bangladesh
Polygamy and civil polygamous marriages are legal in Bangladesh but restricted according to a law of 1961. The practice has reportedly declined in recent decades but still an estimated 10 percent of Bangladeshi men are in polygamous marriage, though this rate is lower than that found in other nations where polygamy is permitted. Some cities have placed relatively high taxes on extra wives that become increasing higher with each new wife the man takes. A Bangladeshi Muslim man can marry up to four wives, as long as he has the permission of existing wives, in accordance with Bangladesh and Muslim law. There is no known limit to how many wives a Hindu man can take in Bangladesh even though Hindu family law regards polygamy as a sin. [Source: Wikipedia]
Miti Sanjana wrote in the Dhaka Tribune: In Bangladesh polygamy “is much less common and usually looked down upon. According to the Marriages and Divorces (Registration) Act, 1974, a Muslim man in Bangladesh can marry up to four wives at the same time, subject to the permission of his existing wives. As per section 6(1) of the Act, no man — during the subsistence of an existing marriage — can contract another marriage without the permission of the arbitration council. [Source: Miti Sanjana, Dhaka Tribune. August 28, 2017, Miti Sanjana is a Barrister-at-law from Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and an Advocate of Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and an activist]
“An application for permission must be submitted to the council chairman stating the reasons for the proposed marriage and with the consent of the existing wife or wives. So, there is some legal provision to protect the woman’s rights in the marriage, but it is up to the arbitration council to ensure that the provision is followed — that the consent of the existing wife (or wives) is sincere, and that she is not being coerced into it by her husband.
“The law provides that if the man wants to marry against the existing wife’s wishes, he must immediately pay her the entire amount of the dower already agreed upon. Failure to pay the dower will be an offence punishable with the maximum imprisonment of one year, or with a fine which may extend to Tk10,000, or both.
“In many cases, whether through social and familial pressure or through financial dependence, a woman is compelled to agree to something that goes against her own happiness. Some of our laws have also given unfettered power to men over women, and resulted in the worst possible outcome, affecting the most vulnerable sectors of society.
“Polygamy is a very disrespectful and unjust practice that has historically been a part of many societies around the world, but has declined over time. In modern Bangladesh, there are only a few rural areas where polygamous marriages are still in practice, but in urban areas the practice has drastically fallen. It is gratifying to see that though polygamous marriages are legal in Bangladesh, the percentage is much lower than the average rates found in other Eastern Mediterranean and African countries.
“Some people think polygamy is still acceptable. No! Slavery was legal at one time, but we know it’s not OK. Just because something is not illegal does not make it right. Why should, in today’s world, a woman have to undergo such an ordeal in order to maintain a marital home that she is already devoting her life to? Why should oppressive customs from medieval times still be used to torture women today?”
Unfairness of Bangladesh’s Marriage Laws to Hindu Women and Children
Sharmin Ahmed wrote in the Daily Star: “For 20 long years, Kanon Bala Das was married to a man who suddenly disclaimed her and her two children to marry another woman. As there are no laws for the Hindus to register or have any official document during marriage, Kanon, who was married off as per Hindu traditions, can neither prove her marriage and file for a divorce nor take any legal help. Her children face questions regarding their identities especially when they need to fill in forms to sit for exams. Because of the stigma surrounding her, Kanon’s parents have also disclaimed her and her children. [Source: Sharmin Ahmed, Daily Star, May 14, 2012]
“As she narrates her sad plight, she wails, “Where should I go? To a brothel? Because the stigma I face is just as debasing as belonging to one? He can disown me and marry again but I cannot because there is no scope for divorce or a remarriage that can be secured through registration.” Human rights advocate Rabindranath Bishas says, “Given that there are no laws regarding registration, divorce and property rights of the Hindus, we cannot provide any legal advice and assistance. There has been a case of a woman who had married again, however she has no legal papers, so she cannot divorce her first husband and cannot legalize her second marriage.”
“But this is not the only problem that the Bangladeshi Hindu women face in their day to day lives. Torulota Rai tells the most heart rending of tales. She was married off at 13 years of age, a year later she gave birth to a boy. Her husband convinced her mother to entitle him to all of her family’s property. Eventually when there was nothing else to take from her and her family, he left her and married another woman. Not only has he rid her off all her property and disowned her, he is now threatening to take away her only son. She had to hide the boy away at her uncle’s house.
“Because there is no law for the protection of Hindu women, she cannot take any legal help either. “I have given up hopes for my marriage and property but I want to keep my son, I do not want him to bear his father’s name, I want him to bear my name but there are no laws or acts to grant me that.”
Efforts to Reform Bangladesh’s Marriage Laws That Unfair to Hindu Women
Sharmin Ahmed wrote in the Daily Star: “Shaheen Anam, executive director of Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) says: “For a long time various rights based organizations have been working to ensure the rights of the Hindu minority.” In the early ‘80s many progressive lawyers began their work to reform the conventional Hindu law, discussing it with lawyers, social-scientists and others who are directly involved with the problem. [Source: Sharmin Ahmed, Daily Star, May 14, 2012]
“The MJF later conducted surveys of its own in various places across the country. The aim was to find and record effects of the lack of laws on Hindu marriage registration, divorce and polygamy on the women and their children. Eventually 10 nongovernment organizations that deal with women and human rights issues and a few individuals came up with a “Hindu Marriage Draft Law 2011”, which was presented to the Ministry of Law.
“Barrister Shafiq Ahmed, Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, says: “I have been an avid supporter of the Hindu Marriage law from a long time. However, as the government have stated, it will not pass any law that is confrontational with religion. The Hindu Marriage registration law will be passed but the divorce and property laws will require further investigation and review.” He adds that the government has discussed the matter with legal experts, Hindu scholars, and lawyers for formulating a Hindu marriage registration law. Rakhi Das Purokayostho, organizing secretary of Bangladesh Mohila Parishad empathizes, “It is often the case that when women’s right is the issue, religion is brought into it: A woman always faces questions of virtues and righteousness. This is why it is necessary that the state be involved to ensure these basic rights.”
“In the draft, a man or a woman can file for various reasons including change of religion by either the husband or wife; violence; physical or mental illness; and if the husband or wife has been absconding for at least four years. Groups are also demanding that there should be punishment for breaching the registration law, for instance a fixed amount of fine or jail time. Ahmed also says the government could make a separate law so that Hindus, Buddhists and Christians like Muslims can avail of the “Declaration of Gift” ― which allows one to bequeath their daughters with property. He also says the government has formed tribunals at district level to deal with the vested properties in order to protect the rights of the religious minority over their lands. It is clear from the law minister’s comments that ― if the state refuses to address issues that affect religious sentiments ― the draft to be passed will take longer than it should as property rights and divorce rites are deep-rooted issues that won’t be easy to undo.
Weddings in Bangladesh
Wedding festivities in Bangladesh typically take place in three stages: First, there is the bridal shower (“Gaye Holud”), where friends of the bride get together to dress the bride and apply henna-colored dyes on each other. Next is the official marriage ceremony held at the bride's home with a reading from the Quran. The last is a reception (“Bou Bhath”) in honor of the new couple at the groom's residence.
In the past, marriage celebrations lasted as long as seven days. In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “Those days, earthen walls and floor were decorated with artistic designs. Women sang various native songs and danced through whole day. Guests coming from around and far, who took part also in the revelry, were served with various home-made foods. In the day of fetching bride from her father’s house to the father-in-law’s, the bridegroom, escorted by the following, ridden on many bullock-carts, went on with pomp and grandeur. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]
“It was known that Md. Nojibor Rahman Talukdar, descendant of Md. Khepu Mahmud, went to marry his bride riding on the elephant and behind him was a series of 100 bullock-carts, the biggest and pompous wedding show in his time. Now all those revelries are limited within three days. Before the day of marriage ceremony, both the guardians of bride and groom arrange another ceremony named Gaye Halood separately in their own houses. On that day, men and women of the family and the village surround the bride or groom, who sits on a seat. They one by one besmear him or her, particularly in the face, hands and feet, with pasted turmeric, mixed with grass, mustard seed and henna. In this time, women sing many songs all regarding marriage and dance haphazardly. Later all, who are present, sprinkle over one another red color to rejoice the marriage. This custom has been wholly taken from Hindu’s Holi Festival. At last, he/she has to take a bath to wash turmeric. It is believed that this turmeric will make him or her fairer to attract each other at the first night of their living together.
“Next day, groom wears trouser, sherwani (a long coat) and turban. Then he, along with his people, goes to the bride’s house by a rented bus with a suitcase full of cosmetics, clothes, mainly beautiful saris and ornaments. Bride adorns herself as brightly as possible usually with a red sari and gold ornaments. At the end of all casual customs, parents give the hands of their daughter to their son-in-law. Immediately after that day, another festival is arranged in the husband’s house named Bou-vat. Guests are invited to join the feast as well as to see bride and groom with a presentation as a mark of blessing.”
In an effort to bring rain to parched area of northern Bangladesh, villagers wed a pair frogs in a ceremony that featured a girl dressed as a bride walking through the streets of her village with caged, decorated frogs on her head while villagers throw water on the frogs. The ceremony apparently has been successful in the past.
Dowry in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, as is true throughout India, Pakistan and South Asia, assets are moved from the bride’s family to the groom’s family. In most parts of the world it is either the other way around or there is no exchange of assets between families.
Marriages are often preceded by extensive negotiations between the families of the prospective bride and groom. One of the functions of the marriage negotiations is to reduce any discrepancy in status through financial arrangements. The groom's family ordinarily pledges the traditional cash payment, or bride-price, part or all of which can be deferred to fall due in case of divorce initiated by the husband or in case the contract is otherwise broken. As in many Muslim countries, the cash payment system provides women some protection against the summary divorce permitted by Islam. Some families also adopt the Hindu custom of providing a dowry for the bride. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]
A typical wedding and dowry can cost a family the equivalent of several hundred or thousand dollars, representing three or four years income for many villagers. The family of the groom often demands large dowry payments. If the money is not forthcoming after marriage they can easily initiate divorce proceedings. The groom’s family sometimes pays a brideprice. It is often paid in cash with the understanding that a portion of the money will be paid back if there is a divorce. The logic behind the dowry system in part is based on the idea of paying compensation if one side of the marriage partnership marries up or down in terms of caste and status.
According to Human Rights Watch: “A 1980 law banned the practice of the payment of dowry to the groom’s family by the family of the bride. In spite of this, the payment of dowry remains widespread in Bangladesh, including among extremely poor people, where a bride’s parents may give some of their own belongings, for example, the mother’s jewellery, in lieu of cash. “Seventy to eighty percent of Muslim families give dowry,” an NGO worker in Laxmipur said, “and in Hindu families they all give dowry. Rich families give ‘gifts’ and don’t use the term dowry.” [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]
“So entrenched is the practice of dowry that several parents told Human Rights Watch that they had insisted on paying dowry for their daughter, believing that the girl would be valued more highly and treated better by her in-laws if she came with a dowry. “His family said, ‘We really like her— we don’t want any dowry,’” Alima A., who married at age 13, said describing her 25-year-old husband’s parents’ enthusiasm for the match. “My father insisted on a 40,000 taka [$51 dowry and jewellery because he said, ‘I only have two girls and I won’t marry them for nothing.’” Dowry practices also create pressure for boys and men to marry well and enrich their families through the dowry their brides bring. Adnan M., a 16-year-old boy, told Human Rights Watch, “The rate of taking dowry is going up. Parents are very evil— they want to use their sons to make some money.”
Dowry Deaths in Bangladesh
Every year scores of Bangladeshis women are murdered by their husbands or in-laws in dowry murders. This is less than the thousands that occur in India but is still a tragedy. The murders don’t just take place in rural villages, often they occur in middle class families in some of India's most affluent neighborhoods. Only a handful result in convictions.
In many cases, particularly in urban areas, a groom's family makes excessive demands on the bride's family — even after marriage — and when the demands are not met, murder the bride, typically by setting her clothes on fire in a cooking "accident." The male and female in-laws implicated in these murders have seldom been punished. Such dowry deaths have been the subject of numerous media reports. [Source: Library of Congress *]
According to South Asian custom, if a dowry is too small the groom's family may persecute or immolate the bride. Sometime men murder their wife and marry again to collect a second dowry. The sums of money are so large that the murders can still turn a tidy profit after lawyer fees and bribes to police and doctors have been payed.
A report of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP) said that in 2017 at least 141 women were killed in dowry-related crimes. BMP prepared the report on the basis of news published in 14 national dailies which showed that a total of 5,235 women were victims of different violence in the year. Of them, 713 were murdered, 34 killed in fire accident and two in acid attack. The report said at least 324 were victims of physical torture, 208 of dowry-related torture. [Source: newagebd.net, January 2, 2018] In 2006, a Bangladesh man was executed for killing his wife in dispute over dowry. Associated Press reported: “Abul Kalam Azad, a Bangladeshi man convicted of killing his newlywed wife after she failed to meet his demand for dowry, was hanged to death in the early morning. The execution of Azad, a former bank official, took place in Dhaka Central Jail. The execution came days after President Iajuddin Ahmed turned down Azad's clemency appeal. In 2000, a trial court convicted Azad of strangulating his newlywed wife Mahmuda Sultana to death in Narayanganj town near Bangladesh capital Dhaka the previous year. The court was told that Azad asked his wife to bring him an unspecified amount of money from her middle class family to start a business. He started beating her after she said her family was unable to give him the money. On October 29, 1999, Azad was involved in an argument with his wife over his demand, the prosecution said. The next morning the woman was found dead in her bedroom, a piece of cloth tied around her neck. Azad claimed she committed suicide. [Source: The Associated Press, November 27, 2006]
See Separate Article VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN BANGLADESH
Divorce in Bangladesh
According to “Countries and Their Cultures”: “Divorce is a source of social stigma. A Muslim man may initiate a divorce by stating "I divorce you" three times, but very strong family pressure ordinarily ensures that divorces do not occur. A divorce can be most difficult for the woman, who must return to her parent's household. [Source:“Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
Divorce proceedings can be initiated under various pretexts. A woman who is divorced often has little chance of getting remarried. One police officer told Reuters, “Husbands give them a talak (divorce) for reasons untenable under law and the women suffer for the rest of their lives with their children growing up in tatters. Such abuses are widespread although declining.”
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the number of applications for divorce increased by 34 percent between 2012 and 2019. The Economist reported: More and more are filed by women, especially in cities. Not long ago, women could not initiate divorces. During marriage ceremonies, the presiding registrar would ask the husband and his family if they wanted to give the bride the right to seek a divorce, says Fawzia Karim Firoze, president of the Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers’ Association. “Of course many, if not most, families said ‘no’.” A legal change means women now enjoy the right as a matter of course. But they still have to give a reason for wanting a divorce, such as infidelity. Men do not. [Source: The Economist, February 28, 2010]
“It was when Nasrin Khaleque got a job that she realised her marriage “was not normal”. None of her female colleagues seemed to have husbands who checked to see what they were up to ten times a day, or who objected if they went out for coffee after work. She told her husband she wanted a divorce. “I realised I didn’t have to put up with it,” she says.
Majhar Mannan wrote in the The Independent of Bangladesh: “In Dhaka, in 2020 there was “an average of 1194 divorces per month. In 2019 there was an average of 920 divorces per month. Divorce has increased by 29.78 percent in the first 5 months of 2020. The incidence of divorce in 2019 has increased by 17 percent compared to 2018. There have been 4773 divorces in Chittagong in 2020. In Sylhet there were 2336 divorce applications filed in 10 months of 2020. The divorce rate is higher in urban areas than in rural areas of Bangladesh. About 70 percent of divorce applications come from women and 30 percent from men. The divorce rate is much higher among educated people and lower among the common people. A survey shows that from 2010 to 2019, the number of divorces in the capital is about 70000 and 50 to 60 divorce applications are submitted daily. The National Women Council has identified four reasons for women's divorce. 1. Dowry 2. Illicit relationships outside of marriage. 3. Mental torture. 4. Physical torture. [Source: Majhar Mannan, The Independent of Bangladesh, December 25, 2020, Mannan is an Assistant Professor, B A F Shaheen College Kurmitola, Dhaka Cantonment]
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022