'I have seen cases where men pretend to have a job in towns by producing fake documents until they get married,' Apet says. 'After the marriage, the mask comes off'

Digambar, 44, cultivates soyabean on his two acres and doubles up as an agricultural labourer. He has a loan of Rs. 2 lakhs from a private moneylender and is willing to borrow more for dowry, if needed. “Even if it [the loan] multiplies, it hardly matters. At least my daughter will not have to bear the crisis of agriculture. Otherwise, I will save money [on dowry], and push her into misery for the rest of her life [by marrying her to a farmer]. Even if her husband earns 15,000 rupees in a job, it is an assured income. You can't make such calculations if you are a farmer because the only thing certain in farming is uncertainty.”



The reluctance of families to arrange their daughters’ marriages into farm households has made it difficult for marriage brokers in Girwli, like Sanjay Apet, to find matches. “I recently fixed the wedding of a 33-year-old man after a lot of effort,” he says. “His is a story you could have written. But I cannot tell you his name. Because he is actually 37.”

Apet says the subterfuge takes on many other forms. “I have seen cases where men pretend to have a job in towns by producing fake documents until they get married,” he says. “After the marriage, the mask comes off. Fudging your age is also dishonest, but pretending to have a job can devastate the life of the woman.”

In some instances, Apet says, he has been trying to find brides for farmer grooms for more than two years. “Earlier, the discussions would start with what the dowry amount would be and what is the family like. Today, they only talk further if the groom doesn't belong to a farm household.”



Radha Shinde’s experience speaks of this. She got married three years ago into a farm household in Mudegaon village of Ambejogai taluka. "My parents looked for a groom for two years," says 26-year-old Radha. "The priority was to not marry a farmer. My husband’s family has an 18-acre farmland which my in-laws look after. My husband does not do farming. Just when we got married, he started a jewellery shop in Latur. My parents agreed only when he told them about his plan to start the shop."

“There are several boys in our villages who I think might never get married,” Apet adds. “And the constant rejections have contributed to their frustration, along with the agrarian crisis and debt."