Female Priests, No Kanyadaan. The Internet Is Loving This Progressive Wedding
Your Facebook timeline is filled with wedding posts so you know it’s spreading rapidly, this season. It must be a thing because a bunch of stars did it the end of last year as well. And while weddings have been mostly in the news for how grand they are and what designers the bride has chose to wear, this one is slightly different. Okay no, not slight, very different, but for all the right reasons. And we are so here for it.
This particular Bengali wedding turned conservative into reformative and did it in the best way possible. The ceremonies were conducted by four women priests, a departure from the male pandits that are usually taking charge here. It didn’t stop there. When the father had to give away his daughter as a gift to the groom, the kanyadaan, the ceremony was entirely done away with, discarded as unnecessary. And when someone tweeted about this, the internet was impressed!
I'm at a wedding with female pandits. They introduce the bride as the daughter of <mother's name> and <father's name> (mom first!!!). The bride's dad gave a speech saying he wasn't doing kanyadaan because his daughter wasn't property to give away. 🔥🔥🔥 I'm so impressed. pic.twitter.com/JXqHdbap9D
— Asmita (@asmitaghosh18) February 4, 2019
Kanyadan is a gift of a maiden from the bride's father to the household of the groom. Why should a woman be considered a gift or an object?Any ritual called Putradan?No. Women should be treated as equal humans. Marriage means 2 adult humans live together bcs they love each other.
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) December 13, 2018
In which planet did this happen ? Beautiful people.
— Asheema (@Tontangbi) February 5, 2019
The father of the bride refused to do the kanyadaan, by simply saying that her daughter was not his property in the first place to give away as a present to her in-laws. We love how this family is celebrating their liberal beliefs at a wedding, where a lot of the rituals are performed only because ‘Log kya kahenge?’ and all that.
Of course, we don’t see weddings getting a complete overhaul but this is a start and we are onboard.
