As Hindus worldwide celebrate Durga Puja or Dussehra, a festival to celebrate the win of good over evil, some men think the age-old connotation of Durga maa has changed. Durga maa as worshipped by Hindus is a lady with 10 hands and armed with a deadly weapon in each is represented differently in modern day lives. This picture going viral nowadays shows a modern woman in the form of all deadly weapons in the form of laws –

The banner shows a woman armed with all deadly laws that are enough to kill a man. These men raise a question that if Hindu women were traditionally worshipped in the form of Durga or Kali (two main goddesses of Shakti or power) then why is the notion that Indian women are not empowered. These men say modern empowered women are free to break their families any time as they are heavily compensated for that. This is why marriage is a loser’s choice.

In this survey, divorced men were asked if they wanted to marry a second time and 45% respondent said ‘no’ to second marriage compared to 32% who wanted to get married again –

Also in reply to another question in the survey, more than 50% of respondents said that bachelor life is best –

While commenting why men should not marry, Chetan told me this story to illustrate how men select their partners –

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“Once upon a time, a man got involved with 3 girls at the same time and all 3 became good friends. All were sexy and hot. Owing to his old-fashioned rich Mom, He had to choose one to marry so as to get the inheritance. So he conducted a test. He gave Rs. 5000 to each of his girlfriend telling them they could decide on how to spend the money and but they’d have a report back to him at the end of the week.

The first girl promptly purchased a dress she had always wanted and come back to him and told him “Jaanu, I bought this dress to look the most beautiful only for uuuuuu”.

The second one booked up a trip to a weekend getaway at an exotic hill-station and told him “Chiku, I want to spend time with my shonaaa”.

The third one, a CA, bought Nifty Options Intraday and doubled money 3 times in a week. She came back and returned him 10000 and kept 5000 for herself.

The man was shocked… Could not figure out what to do.

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After long pondering over this, he decided to marry

the girl that had largest (.) (.)

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While some ad makers may get some important ideas to show that “men will be men” while choosing their life partner, women’s physical beauty is still the single most criteria for many men in India. What Chetan wanted to say was men’s criteria are still very basic one and they do not judge women by other qualities and get into a trap.

CSK Sanu from Mumbai said while supporting marriage boycott– “Marriage had become an extortion tool due to Blind laws. If men get a fraud partner then life gets spoiled.”

MK Anand who works in the UK as an IT professional, said – “Marriage is not the only thing in life.” He suggested that Indian men should rather discover themselves.

Jagadish from Bhopal reiterated Anand’s points. He advised men to rather discover themselves and said – “life without women is heaven, experience it”.

In another survey on Intimate Partner Violence on Men, it was found that an overwhelming 48% men had suffered Physical Violence from their wives. More than 50% men had complained about sexual violence and also of verbal abuse. This is quite a contrary to the popular belief that only women are subjected to sexual violence. This findings also confirms why men are going against the concept of marriage.

Hussein Ali of Mumbai said – “an empowered woman has robbed me of some precious years from my life that no one can return.” For him, men need to pay a huge price for marriage and hence it is not worth.

Vijay from Kanpur said that educated Indian women know flaws in Indian laws well and they cause more damage. Men face more domestic violence than women in India.

Some people not only wanted to avoid marriage but they were ready to adopt a baby and live happily.

Sordid tales of torture and abuse comes aplenty from these men. Sonu said, that his love marriage became bitter despite his best actions to bring her back. Rather he was threatened many times by false criminal cases.

Abhishek Kaushik felt that laws needed to be equal for individuals and Indian family laws put ever man in danger. In his opinion that is a good reason for men to boycott marriage.

Chandu Reddy from Hyderabad narrated his story of getting extorted by his wife and her family and said, we need to fight against these laws so that these disgraceful women are punished. He believed law misuse is the major reason for men’s suicide.

Janak Merchant said – “There are all kinds of violence taking place on Indian men all over India. Worst is emotional and then comes financial. In the end, it all boils down to wife wanting lots of hard earned money of her husband.”

Some of them say women have no responsibility in the family, so why marry? Marriage is a complete loss for men as they need to take all responsibility. Their complaint is married men have no choice even in their homes. They need to abide by whatever their wives say and their silent sacrifice is not even noticed by anyone. Pampering the wife is another need that one has to constantly follow. Else hell breaks loose. Many men are sick of this provider role but can’t break traditions. A recent hype around marital rape created by the movie Pink leaves men red-faced. With ‘No means No’ becoming popular, these men believe men do not get sex when they need and now they run the risk of being termed a rapist. In addition, sexual crimes and adultery by women are on the rise.

Bhaveen Sheth, who is an HR professional is so much moved by marriage boycott that he had dedicated an entire blog to single men.

Arvind believed that marriage considers a man as a mere ATM machine. In fact, there are many who reflects his thought.

2016 Mumbai marathon saw a man dressed as ATM machine

While the reason for marriage boycott may be many for different men and boys and even if their number is increasing, they are still very insignificant compared to the critical mass needed to change the society.

In a July 2016 study, we found that Indian men outnumber women while seeking an alliance. This cuts across all marital status. This study found out the numbers of profiles that existed on different popular Indian matrimonial sites.

Even though many argued that most of the male profiles may be fake but there is no guarantee that women profiles are not.

To understand the eagerness of the two genders in getting married, we have created two different profiles of two different genders without photos. To make them similar we have made the male profile more educated and earning little more than the female profile, and everything else was same. We noticed that the male profile received two interests in one day while the female profile had received 14 interests in one day.

Even though a comparison between the census 2001 and 2011 data showed that percentage of married women grew in India but that does not prove that Indian men are any less desperate to get married. Question is when there are so many biased laws against men when a man’s 50% hard-earned property can be at stake simply for marriage, why are Indian men still so much interested in marriage? Looks like the men raising a demand for marriage boycott still have a long way to go in terms of sensitizing Indian men about this.

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