A woman's bare words
When I scrolled past some posts on X that the actor and politician Jaya Bachchan had given bad advice on marriage, I first presumed that she had said something regressive. It was nave on my part because this presumption was on the basis that it was women whom I saw making these remarks. Id forgotten momentarily that women too can be patriarchal agents. As it turned out, Bachchan had made a progressive, still-controversial, statement during a live interview at the recent We The Women conference in Mumbai. She said that she would prefer for her grand-daughter Navya Nanda, who is in her late 20s, to not get married, as marriage is an outdated institution. Just enjoy life, she told the audience, to applause, as per a clip that has circulated on social media. That applause was not echoed online, of course. Many, who have criticised Bachchan for her comments on marriage, claim she must have arrived at her opinion because her own marriage of over 50 years to fellow actor Amitabh Bachchan is an unhappy one. But such judgement is just cruel. If her marriage is unhappy, then it is like many (many!) marriages, and shes being candid in her view of the institution so that others may sidestep pain. If her marriage is not unhappy, then she has clearly observed the institution at play in many forms and many others tales, and come to a conclusion that has long been a feminist position. The truth, not that its any of our business, probably lies somewhere in between: the Bachchans have had a marriage of many textures, and she is forward-thinking enough to recognise that the institution itself has flaws and that her granddaughters generation has more choices in how to tackle these than her own did. She wants her granddaughter, and presumably all women who have the agency to, to consider those choices. Some of us have chosen or will choose marriage in our lifetimes, even knowing the data the many scientific studies and even more headlines that indicate that life as a woman within heterosexual marriage can be extremely challenging. It would be foolish to make that choice so without understanding that the statistics paint a picture that our own personal love stories wish to contradict. The kinds of marriages we make, or break, depend on how we execute those contradictions. One can be hopeful, but its better to take such leaps of faith in a well-considered way. Navya Nandas grandmother clearly encourages her to do exactly that. It is to the publics benefit that she didnt conceal her views behind the formulaic, PR-finessed lines that may have been expected of her. It is generous of Bachchan, whose industry is based on illusions and whose stature in the world is one which begets constant scrutiny, to offer hard-won wisdom that flies in the face of not only the patriarchy but also the established norms of a life in the spotlight. Those who pretend that marriage is easy, make other marriages harder. Those who dont invite more authenticity into how they live their lives and lead by example, not just serve as cautionary tales.
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