"Are you prepared to marry a widow or an unmarried mother who has no obligations with regard to her children?"
This is a quote from a list of questions at the Shraddhanand Mahilashram shelter,[FN1 The sociologist Neela Dabir includes the list in the appendix of her dissertation on the Shraddhanand Mahilashram shelter. The list is not dated, but was in use at the time of Dabir's research in the 1990s. Neela Dabir, A Study of a Shelter Home for Women in Distress. SNDT Women's University, Bombay, 1994.] an institution for women and children in distress.
"Are you prepared to marry a widow or an unmarried mother who has no obligations with regard to her children?" Excerpt from a list of questions submitted by the Shraddhanand Mahilashram marriage bureau to men seeking a wife. In the languages Marathi (first line) and Hindi (second line) Source: Neela Dabir, A Study of a Shelter Home for Women in Distress. SNDT Women's University, Bombay, 1994.]
Questionnaire for prospective husbands in English
Questionnaire that the marriage bureau of the Shraddhanand Mahilashram shelter handed out to men who wanted to get married.
Foto: Andrea Abraham, April 2023.
The questionnaire was completed by men who were interested in marrying one of the women staying at the shelter. The Shraddhanand Mahilashram shelter was one of the institutions that officially ran a marriage bureau to arrange marriages for its residents in order to enable them to return to society. The price was usually having to part with their children, as the Indian sociologist Neela Dabir[FN2 Neela Dabir, A Study of a Shelter Home for Women in Distress, SNDT Women's University, Bombay, 1994, here p. 342.] describes:
"All these homes are reluctant to offer shelter if the woman is not willing to hand over her child for adoption. […] No other facilities are available for further help and rehabilitation."
Neela Dabir[FN3 Neela Dabir, A Study of a Shelter Home for Women in Distress, SNDT Women's University, Bombay, 1994.] writes that the marriage bureau was popular in the community. The men who turned to it were usually unable to marry in any other way because, for example, they had grown up in an institution, had no family, had a disability, were divorced, widowed or unemployed, or had parents who had married outside their castes. The bureau's social workers arranged marriages based on a selection process that included interviews with the prospective husbands, application forms and information on the man's occupation, income, assets and family. Next, the man and woman met for an initial interview. Prior to this meeting, the woman was provided with information about the man's background. If both parties agreed to proceed with the marriage, the man was given some information about the woman's background. He was also required to undergo a medical examination and obtain his parents' consent, but was instructed not to disclose the woman's background to anyone. The next step was a visit to the man's home to meet his family, during which the woman was accompanied by representatives of the shelter in order to check that the future home was suitable and that the woman was satisfied she could live there. Once the man paid a deposit to the shelter, the marriage could proceed. If the marriage was dissolved within three years, the shelter kept the deposit. The shelter had a fund that it used to equip the woman with the material items she would need for married life. The couple also received basic marriage counselling from the shelter, though Neela Dabir describes this as providing inadequate information on sexual education and family planning. The wedding was usually held in the shelter.
Cover of the study on the Shraddhanand Mahilashram shelter, which the Indian sociologist conducted in the early 1990s, providing a unique insight into what life was like for women in Bombay (now Mumbai) who became pregnant out of wedlock. Photo: Andrea Abraham, April 2023.
Goborgunk, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The shelter as a place of return
Some of the shelters remained in contact with the women after the marriage, either as a source of advice in personal matters relating to marriage or family planning or through an informal annual get-together. Indian witnesses interviewed by Andrea Abraham and Asha Narayan Iyer in Mumbai in April 2023 recalled that the women concerned tended not to talk about their pregnancy, their stay in the institution or parting with their child, as though they had "cut off" that part of their life. Former agency director Pramila Gandhi* [FN1 All names marked with an asterisk have been changed.] describes how this would become a life-long secret:
"The girl couldn't tell anyone about it and carried the secret of her lost motherhood around with her all her life."
To support women carrying this burdensome secret, some agencies and shelters organised annual meetings in the period of the study (1973–2002) for mothers who had given up their children for adoption. Shilpi Alagh*, the former director of an adoption agency, said that the Indian festival of Durga Puja was a difficult time for the mothers. Durga Puja is an Indian festival held over several days to honour the Hindu goddess Durga during which daughters traditionally visit their mothers. Mothers who had given up their children were able to spend this time together at the agency.
"They were all dressed up and doing henna. […] And they connected with each other. We talked with them and they shared their feelings. Were they able to get over it? Do they remember their child? What feelings do they have and what do they want for their child? We discussed all of this with them so that they could clear their heads, because they couldn't talk to anyone else about it. […] We did that a lot, and it was a very helpful network for them, because people only think of networks of adoptive parents or adoptive children. They don't think about the birth mothers."
Marriage was a form of social rehabilitation for mothers wanting to leave the shelter, but they paid a high price in having to part with their child. What life was like for a woman who left such an institution remains largely unknown, as there is no public discourse or academic research on biological mothers in the Indian context. The only information we have about the direction the mothers' lives took and how they coped with separation from their children comes from successful root searches.[FN4 The efforts of adoptees to trace their origins have been documented and can be accessed on the websites of adoptees or in media reports, autobiographies and documentaries, for example: "Meeting my mother after 42 years was a miracle" (BBC News), YOU FOLLOW: a search for one's past (documentary).]
