Being Indian | Single and not ready to mingle

Bollywood and businesses have started to address the single-women cohort, and single Indian women themselves are organizing what they need to live happily ever after. (Photo by Jill Wellington via Pexels)

Note to readers: Being Indian is a limited series on what it means to be Indian today - personally and professionally.

There is little doubt that India is a marriage-obsessed country. Young girls are often betrothed by the time they hit puberty and married off in their late teens. In urban areas, even educated and wealthy parents worry about a match for their daughters ahead of their education and careers. Yet, in our 77th year of Independence, a hitherto marginalized segment of the population is gathering momentum and slowly making its presence felt in metros around the country. Single Indian woman - usually considered unworthy of attention or respect as “spinsters, widows and divorcees”, are emerging from the shadows and becoming a force to reckon with.

In 2001, there were 51.2 million single women living in India. By 2011, this number had risen by 39 percent to cross 71 million – more than the populations of the United Kingdom and Switzerland combined. It is very likely that the next census will take this number closer to, if not above, 100 million! While there are several reasons for this growth – increasing divorce rate, rise in age of marriage, more women outliving men - many women today are consciously choosing to remain single too.

Noida-based architect Shweta Kaw, 39, never married, largely because she was disappointed by the prejudiced and patriarchal attitudes of the prospective grooms she was introduced to by her family. “I am happily single,” she says, “because I see that having to juggle family, household work, relationships, career have all taken a toll on my married women friends. At 40, they are burnt out.”

Kaw once told a relative who called her “a liability on your parents” that she was “not a liability but an asset.” Today, as the only child of her parents, she takes care of them “in sickness and in health.”

Mihrimah Nizam, 30, works as an editor in an edu-tech firm in Gurgaon. She grew up in a small town in Kerala and was “married off” by her family at the age of 25. Divorced at 29 from a man to whom she was no more than a “submissive homemaker, a slave doing a thankless job,” she says, today she is “a strong, independent woman,” living by herself.

“Once I was out of the trauma, I made a choice not to get remarried. I need to figure out who I am first, give myself importance first and then maybe in the long run think if I want to get remarried,” Nizam adds.

Mirroring this trend is Bollywood, which threw up some surprising gems like Piku and Queen with their strong single women protagonists, in recent years.

On television, one now sees ads where single working women buy jewellery for themselves. Consumer goods companies and banks are beginning to woo them. Travel companies like WOW (Women on Wanderlust) cater to women who want to get away on their own with girlfriends on women-only trips.

Until a few years ago, it was difficult for a woman to even go buy a car on her own without being accompanied by a “sir” who would “test drive” it, says Pune-based Renu Sakhrani, 59, who was a single mother to her three children. “Today, if you don’t respect me as a single woman, I don’t give you my business,” she adds.

There is no doubt that being single comes with its own challenges as well. Who will provide support and companionship to these single women as they get older and need care themselves? Uma Ladiwala, 66, is a Mumbai-based neuroscientist who is a member of The JOY (Just Older Youth) Community on Facebook. “JOY is like a collective of senior singles aged 55-70 who are essentially looking to support each other as we grow older. We hope to move into seniors' residential communities or housing societies together, with a view to providing support to each other or even just to chat over a cup of tea, go for a walk or play a game of Scrabble. I have made several friends through JOY,” she says.

Single women continue to face other issues of concern regarding their security, the admission of their children in schools, and their ability to find safe and affordable housing, for example.

While safety in public spaces is an issue that affects all women in India, single women are more vulnerable. Women living with families are ‘protected’ by family members who will accompany them when it is dark or pick them up if they are stranded in an unsafe place. But single women have to rely on their own wits and the often inadequate security measures provided by the state.

School admissions are difficult for children of single women because most academic institutions demand the presence of a father at admission time and his signature on the registration forms. This is not always possible if the single mother is going through an ugly divorce, for example.

Landlords often hesitate to rent apartments to single women because they may indulge in “non-acceptable” activities like consuming alcohol or having male guests; long lists of restrictions are handed over if they are accepted as tenants.

At the end of the day, says Kaw, “you can survive as a single woman in India only if you can develop an extremely thick skin and build a lot of walls and boundaries around you.”

However, while society may be slow to accept the single Indian woman even today, this is not about to prevent her from charting her own course and reaching her goals. In other words, her time has come and she is unstoppable!