Early in 2022 a section of social media users who identified themselves as men’s rights activists wanted a marriage ban (Wallen and Lateef, 2022) in response to an ongoing case in the Delhi High Court which wanted marital rape to become an offence in India (Express News Service, 2022). At the heart of the issue was the question of consent, and the extent to which women in India, are allowed to exercise the right in sexual relations with husbands. Some feminists responded that it was better that men who do not understand the meaning of consent in marriages do not marry (Naraharisetty, 2022).

While sexual violence in marriage is a brutal reality, the process of marriage itself, particularly heterosexual ones, is defined by fixed and unequal gender role expectations which constantly constrain and burden women. This essay however is not about sexual violence but about unequal role expectations within marriages that bear upon gender relations across different sites. The focus here is on cooking, a site which is deeply marked by gender and caste hierarchies in India. Akin to sexual violence within marriages, women’s consent is absent here.

As a reluctant prospective urban, upper caste bride, who is often asked by her parents to talk with prospective grooms and their families, a question that I am often asked is ‘do you know how to cook?’ Such questions inevitably arise when my parents talk to the prospective grooms’ parents. They are often asked by the would-be grooms as well. What interests me is that the talk is never about any other household chores, like washing, dusting, or cleaning. Why is it so?

The gendered nature of cooking

It is taken for granted in a heterosexual marriage, that the woman would take care of the ‘house’, i.e., the chores relating to inside of the house like dusting, washing and cooking. The wife is responsible for the domestic sphere, while the husband is for the outside. Despite the growing number of urban women who are visibly working outside the home (women have always worked, but their job, even if they were working outside the home, such as in the agricultural sector has often been invisibilised), they are supposed to take care of the domestic realm.

Coming from such a perspective, asking a woman if she can cook in arranged marriage rests on some pre-suppositions. One, cooking is seen as one of the most difficult tasks among household chores because of its time-consuming nature and the constant, round-the-clock necessity of food. Perhaps other tasks can be done once a day like dusting, but cooking involves not simply making the food, but also heating and serving it at different times of the day to different members- morning tea, breakfast, tiffin for school and office goer and dinner. The other assumption is many other household chores have found permanent replacements in machines and hired helps. Indeed outsourcing domestic work has been a privilege of upper caste and middle-class homes.[i] Yet cooking is one task that cannot be completely relegated to a domestic help.  

Caste and cooking

Here, it becomes very important to point out the relation between caste and food. Traditionally, in Hindu society, commensality is an important marker of caste distinction. There are histories of restaurants like Udupi which came up so that Tamil Brahmin men, who had ventured outside their homes for jobs, could eat outside food yet maintain their caste (Madsen & Gardella, 2017). Similarly, in different urban areas, there are traditions of hiring cooks who belong to the Brahmin caste (Chunduru, 2020). Thus, cooking as a task is rarely relegated to outside help,  for doing so would often mean clarifying the caste identity of the cook, a task often impossible to establish in an urban setting. Hence, there is continued importance that a member of the household should cook and preserve the caste identity of the family. In addition, the unstated and as evident stated assumption is that within the family women have to cook.

Thus, cooking like many household activities sits in a complex relation with caste and gender. This relation is expressed in everyday conversations. The aim here is not to demonize individuals, but to show the intricately complex ways in which the system works. Further, how arranged marriages are negotiations are extremely complicated. Even if the prospective bride says she doesn’t know how to cook, how she or her parents express it becomes crucial. The inability to cook or feigning ignorance of cooking must be expressed with guilt, a fault on part of the girl and her parents. And if that doesn’t happen, then the prospective groom’s family might feel that the girl is ‘too modern’ and often conclude she is not the right fit for the family.

Thus, every time I frankly tell a prospective groom that although I know how to cook, I have no interest in cooking, they are taken aback. It is as if as a woman, it should be my duty to have an interest in cooking or even to fake it. As a boy told me, you know when I’m in my place of work (which is in a different city than where his parents are settled), I have to clean the toilet as well. When I told him I would prefer cleaning the toilet as a chore over cooking, he acted as if I have gone out of my mind. There are of course both caste and gender implications in this statement. My parents, on the other hand, feel and look apologetic, deeply sorry that their daughter cannot cook.

References:

Chunduru, A. (2020, January 14). Brahmin cooks get premium on websites. The Deccan Chronicle. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/140120/brahmin-cooks-get-premium-on-websites.html

Express News Service. (2022, February 1). Marital rape needs to become an offence, Delhi HC told. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/marital-rape-needs-to-become-an-offence-delhi-hc-7750468/

Madsen S. T. & Gardella G. (2017, October 13). How Udupi Hotels unwittingly helped curbed caste segregation in Indian public spaces. The Scroll. https://scroll.in/magazine/853913/how-udupi-hotels-unwittingly-helped-curb-caste-segregation-in-indian-public-spaces

Naraharisetty, R. (2022, January 22). The Buzz cut: Men’s rights activists strike against marriage unaware they are fulfilling feminists’ dream. The Swaddle. https://theswaddle.com/the-buzz-cut-mens-rights-activists-strike-against-marriage-unaware-they-are-fulfilling-feminists-dreams/  

Wallen J, & Lateef S. (2022, February 2) Men’s rights activists protests introduction of marital rape law in India. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/mens-rights-activists-protest-introduction-marital-rape-law/

[i] https://doingsociology.org/2020/07/18/who-kneads-your-aata-flour-the-lost-love-for-labour-shamsher-singh/, accessed on 7^th August 2022.

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Riona Basu is a PhD Research Scholar at CSSS, JNU, New Delhi.