March 24, 2002

I HAVE good news for women and children who, in an overwhelming majority of wedding feasts — particularly in small towns of our country — have to wait for hours for the food because the men are served first. There might be a change in the offing!

I recently attended a wedding among my relatives settled in Attock, a small, old-fashioned city, where it is normally a foregone conclusion that the barat will arrive late and that after nikah, when it is time to eat, men will be served first. And only after the crockery and cutlery has been washed would the women and children get food. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when soon after nikah, the women were told to move to the eating area.

There we were at the table with food before us. You can hardly imagine our relief and pleasure. We just couldn’t stop praising our hosts for this radical step. Our hostess, a cousin of my father’s, is big on women’s rights in her own small way. She exclaimed proudly, “I have done this, otherwise you all would have been served after two hours.” She was justified in her pride.

Except for weddings in fashionable families, the upper class men and women eat separately in most parts of the country. However, for some decades now, it has become the practice that separate enclosures are set up so that the two sexes can eat at the same time. Actually, this may appear to some of my readers to be commonplace in their class, but this, too, is not a very old practice. It was not there more than forty years ago. And men and women always ate turn-by-turn — the men eating first according to the social norms prevailing in the home. So when our hostess decided to change the practice in Attock, or rather reverse it, it was not a simple proceeding. It was something she was doing to shake up a hoary tradition, well-worn and respected, and therefore no ordinary matter, specially in a small city.

Let me try to get to the root of this tradition. Man was originally the breadwinner. He was the protector and defender of women. He was superior in everything — in physical strength as well as in being worldly-wise. He knew what was best for the family comprising women and children. His personal honour sometimes meant the honour of the whole clan, even the whole locality. His women stood only in his shadow. By themselves, they had no identity and were almost non-entities. They had no other personality but that of being mother, wife, sister and daughter. They would follow him in everything. They would eat after he had eaten, go to sleep after he had gone to bed. If there was need to walk somewhere together, they would trail a few steps behind him, never by his side.

These beliefs were a relic of the feudal way of life that prevailed everywhere in the country at one time, and are still sacred to many people in parts of the country and certain classes and societies. In fact, they are very much there except among the highly-educated, the enlightened and the sophisticated. Education, enlightenment and sophistication have, of course, made a lot of difference. But in some form or the other, discrimination in favour of men is still there. Male children are still preferred and people in some areas will still not congratulate a couple on the birth of a baby girl. The best portions of food in home are still meant for the father and the brothers. The son-in-law occupies the status of a demigod, for he has the power to divorce your daughter or to ill-treat her. To some extent, the same is the position of the brother-in-law who can create trouble for your sister.

The practice of simultaneous service, whether in separate enclosures or the same, was therefore most welcome when it was adopted, dispelling the impression that women are inferior creatures. The innovation at the Attock wedding was more symptomatic of the times than an example of actual change of attitude in the countryside.

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