Women are expected to marry at a certain age. But a second marriage after a divorce or widowhood? What about a late marriage for an older woman?
For a country that is obsessed with marriage, India still remains sceptical about the idea of older women finding love, or even wanting to go in for a second marriage, or marry for the first time.
Perhaps, it is because marriage is just looked at as a means to having sex legally and having children to propagate the bloodline. This, and the putting of mothers on a pedestal mean the idea of women wanting to marry or remarry late becomes an anathema to family and society.
For this project, we initially wanted to look at women who found love or married at the age of fifty or above. However, I couldn’t find anyone in my extended network fulfilling this criterion and it made me wonder…
~ Does this mean that there aren’t many women who marry into their late years?
~ Or even if they do, perhaps, maybe they aren’t comfortable to come forward and share their stories?
~ Does this imply that there’s still some kind of stigma attached to such relationships involving a second marriage?
~ However, does the fact that I found women who were only slightly younger mean that perhaps mindsets are changing gradually, in the right direction?
Here are the stories of three women who opted for a second marriage well into their forties. Let us see how their children, family members, and the community reacted to their finding love and tying the knot late in life.