They were married in church before friends and family. They lived together for many years. He was a nobody before he married her, but with her support as a working woman he came up in life. He was her success story when he rose to become an elected politician. But with money and power in hand, he acquired a mistress. When she pleaded and protested, he uttered the Mizo man's traditional magic words of "Ka Ma Che" to free himself from her. She had to leave her home immediately taking nothing but her own clothes.
When this incident took place in the 1980s, there were many in Aizwal, Mizoram's capital, who raised their voice against the man's wrong-doing. But, unfortunately, that was the only thing that could be done for the woman (names have been withheld to protect the identity of the persons concerned). Everyone's hands were tied by the Mizo Customary Law.
This incident, sadly, reflects the low status of women in Mizo society. According to customary Mizo practices, which have the force of law in the tribal state, a man has to just utter the words "Ka Ma Che", or "I divorce you", to 'resolve' any domestic conflicts he has with his wife. There is nothing that can cushion a woman from this decree, whether she is economically independent, highly educated, from an elite family or from the disadvantaged, marginalised section. In fact, this has often held back many women from taking action against punishing situations at home. Over the years, thousands of Mizo women have suffered (and still do) the effects of this ignominy. If they dare to speak against their husbands, they are slapped with the instant divorce and have to forfeit their life's investments in their homes and their children, too, with no visiting rights available to them.
But things are set to change with the promulgation of the Mizoram Divorce Ordinance 2008 (MDO), which came into force in the state in October 2008. The Ordinance will become a law as soon as the State Assembly is in session. "This ruthless situation has finally come to an end," says B. Sangkhumi, former president of the Mizoram Hmeichhe Insuikhawm Pawl (MHIP), a federation of women that has branches across the state. "It did not come easily. Women have been fighting for decades, seeking to redress all the different kinds of gender discrimination in our highly patriarchal society."
Before gender became the major socio-political issue that it is today, Mizo women had already founded the Mizo Hmeichee Tangrual Pawl (MHTP) in 1946 with the sole objective of getting women gender justice. The MHIP came in next, riding on the wave of the radical new thinking across the globe, which made gender justice the politically correct agenda to pursue. The MHIP gained political access and recognition. From 1997 to 2001, the organisation worked to "review the customary law" and to create an awareness of the low status of women in Mizo society because of this. State-wide seminars and workshops were organised to spread the message. During these sessions innumerable stories of strife and sufferings from across the state were shared, which gave "women's issue" - frequently downgraded as the work of a few dissatisfied women - a social legitimacy. Ordinary women were speaking out!
The MHIP, and other women's organisations, including the Presbyterian Hmeichhe Kohran, the Young Women Christian Movement and various women's wings of the Baptist, Salvation Army and other churches, joined hands to give women's issues the prominence they deserved. The Social Welfare Department of the state government, noted for its strong support of women's organisations, came on board too.
While the review of the Mizo Customary Law as a whole is still a controversial issue, correcting the bias of Mizo marriage will definitely help women to safeguard themselves against economic destitution, say MHIP leaders. Under the MDO, a deserted wife has the legal right to file for divorce and get maintenance and also equal share in the property.
The deep gender imbalances are at the root of most of the social evils that plague Mizo society today. As marriage ties are easily broken, the number of broken families is very high. Left empty-handed, the women have to start from scratch. "Many moon shiners, sellers of illegal liquor and commercial sex workers are from the ranks of deserted wives who have to do something to earn a living for themselves and their children," says Sangkhumi. In many cases, psychologically broken women and their girl-children simply leave their homes and live on the road off their bodies.
According to C. Lalsawta, Social Welfare Commissioner of the state, the unusually high number of orphans will also go down with the MOD in place. He says that this would force parents to be more responsible towards their children. A statistic that never fails to raise anguish among social researchers is that 90 per cent of the children in the 27 orphanages across the state have both or at least one parent alive but have been abandoned because of poverty or their parents inability to care for them. Lalsawta blamed the fragile nature of marriage in Mizo society as the main reason for this abandonment. Many other children are dumped in their grandmothers' arms as the biological parents get on with their lives.
The MDO clearly gives a woman the right to file for divorce on any ground, be it adultery, conversion to another religion, incompatibility, cruelty or desertion among other reasons. All the causes recognised under the Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872 or any other marriage act that is in force in the country have also been taken into account. Despite calls by many women, including famed singer and author Lalsang zuali, for imposition of the Indian Christian Marriage Act (ICMA) 1872 in Mizoram, it could not be implemented. The state comes under Article 371G of the Constitution, which provides that any Act of Parliament would be inapplicable unless the state legislature vets it. However, the state has not done so till now. Mizo marriages were solemnised under the Mizo Christian Dan, a mixture of Western Christian practices and Mizo customs, which were mere rituals.
With the recent order to all state governments to compulsorily register all marriages and another ruling which defines a woman in a common law marriage as having the rights of a 'legally wedded wife', the MDO is a powerful instrument for bringing about gender justice in Mizoram, believes Lalrin Diki, a lecturer at a theological college in Mizoram.
Yet the struggle for justice and equality is far from over. Women's activist and Padmashree, Khawlkungi said recently, "Women need to free themselves from the various boundaries they have been placed into, whether it is in politics, economy or religion."
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