‘India’s Harnaz Sandhu got crowned as Miss Universe 2021’, read the front page of the newspaper. My heart was filled with pride; but soon it filled with shame as I flipped a few pages and read, ‘women dumped her newborn girl in garbage box outside hospital .’ This is nothing but two extreme sides of the same coin. No matter how advanced we become, the glorification of the male child supersedes the birth of the daughter. Till date, ‘beta hua hai‘ brings more joy than ‘ghar pe Laxmi aai hai.‘ While the situation has gotten a little better, it is still difficult to ignore how people justify their idea of preferring a boy over a girl.
1. Economic Reasons
To be more specific, the return on investment on a girl child is considered as zero. Sons are treated as assets who will pay off in the long run, while daughters are liability or ‘Paraya Dhan,’ and investing in them is like watering your neighbour’s garden. Have you ever wondered why board toppers are mostly girls, but sadly, they don’t make even half a percentage of the workforce? Why is there such a huge disparity? Because most parents are usually hesitant to spend money on their higher education as they end up being housewives, and their money gets wasted.
2. Cultural and Spiritual Reasons
The onus to look after the family and aging parents has always been on sons or, as people say ‘Shravan Kumars’ of family. They are expected to provide financial support and bring dowry during the marriage. Well, some people willingly want daughters, but that doesn’t end their desire to have sons. It’s because they believe that they can only attain salvation if their son performs their last rites.
3. Social Status
Your job or money might not elevate your social status as much as having sons will. It is common to find families with multiple daughters in a row until they have a son. Some people even go for second marriages if they are unable to get sons through their first wife. It won’t be wrong to say that families with only daughters are looked down. People tend to make considerable distance fearing that the family might approach them for financial help during their daughter’s marriage.
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4. Family Legacy
“Daughters after getting married and will adopt a different name, then who will carry our family name and who will take care of all the property?” exclaimed Sharma ji. Well, this is the harsh reality. Society does not think that a daughter can carry forward their family name like sons, and once they are married, they are automatically someone else’s property. While a patriarchal society might find it difficult to give all such people equal rights to daughters, the law doesn’t.
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5. Son Meta Preference
This term is defined when couples keep producing sons until their desired number of sons are born. No matter if they have a daughter or not, a certain number of sons are required to complete their family as, according to them, daughters can’t complete a family.
6. Girls Are Always Dependent
It is quite common to see girls accompanied by male members as they step out of their homes. The idea that girls are required to look after and are a huge responsibility is not new. To add on, the increasing rates of sexual assaults and rapes make daughters more vulnerable to such threats and thus need to be protected even more.
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India is a land where daughters are ‘ghar ki ijjat‘ but still people don’t want to have that ‘ijjat‘. While ‘beti bachao, beti padhao’ scheme did show some positive improvement along with ‘Sukanya Samridhi yojana,’ it’s a long way to change this mindset of obsessing over sons and neglecting daughters.
Summary: Boy or Girl! A Big Question We Have
