Endangered Sex : Is it in reality ?

Long time since I registered something here. It is not that nothing was going on underneath that brain of mine, but because I am a student with heavy academic load.

After one more important submission, I sat down as usual to watch a movie. This time an Indian one. "Matrubhoomi". It is quite a famous movie with five international audience awards.

In my opinion, the subject is a powerful one - Female infanticide and dropping sex ratios.

But the movie was disappointing, and full of shocks. It is was for the shocking scene the movie has got so many audience awards. The message from the movie ? Nothing.

The girl in the movie is beautiful but extremely urban looking. She is central powerful character, being the single female in the village, sexually and emotionally abused by every male in the family (that is her five husbands and father-in-law). Even the cow in the house is abused. This, is described as the state when all women are removed from the village. But, the movie unconsciously passed a message that, men need women basically for physical relationship, which is not entirely true.

Even deprived of females around, when a female enters the house, she is seldom respected or treasured, which is surprising.

The irony of dowry given by the groom to the bride in a highly bride-demanding society was well shown. The scenes are extremely shocking and extreme, though expected to happen in reality.

The fact is that, I am watching an outdated movie.

Females being an endangered sex has changed a lot in the present.

Leave aside India, South Korea and China also have similar trends due to exactly the same problem. All the three are parallel in their practices in social and family setup. The lineages are patrilocal (males form the lineage and brides are brought from different families, making identity of mother lost). But there is an interesting difference between marriage expenses in India and the rest for these two genders. The bride expenditure is more in India, whereas, in South Korea and China, the son's marriage is expensive. But still the minimal expenditure from a daughter's wedding is a "loss" for the family.

Regarding spouse availability which is seen all over this movie, researchers pull factors affecting Spouse availability and conclude that it might not result like what is shown in the movie. Because, in Indian (atleast in the northern villages) scenario, the marrying age of both the sexes are not always same. There is some gap existing. The population growth and this age gap decides whether there will be "scarcity" in spouse availability.

China has a different scene; There is no common female discrimination, but during war times, there was severe discrimination resulting in male surplus. From 1990s all Chinese males will experience bride shortage, stats say that 12% of men will experience this and this is will grow further. Additionally, movement of chinese women to other developed nations and preference of non-chinese successful men will also add to the "shortage".

Oh, the topic is depressing now !!!

Well, with the growing matrimonial websites and programs, "When shall we meet?" Catch phrases, I am sure Indian men can tackle even if there is some shortage. Well, stats show that till 80s there was women surplus, after that there is increasingly men surplus. So watch out, you might get a girl after all :-)

Actually an interesting study was carried out by two Indians on whether this marriage "Squeeze" helps to improve situation of the so called Endangered sex ? Actually now, because women are pressurized to get married and thus the dowry is high due to existing groom shortage. Well, if the wife is not good enough for the man, he can also easily get "substitute" wife from the surplus. Lets just wait for the conditions to reverse...

Can balance never be struck ?!