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Trial marriage custom preys on hapless girls

Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar

When a young man expressed interest in her, Jamuna Das agreed to try out the tepid waters of a live-in relationship.

Today, the girl, who hails from Padmakesharipur village in Orissa's Khurda district, is living a nightmare, abandoned and bearing the child of a suitor who refused to become her spouse.

Jamuna, 16, invested a year-and-a-half in 21-year-old Susanta Das's family. "I did all the work and took care of his family members, including his parents, brothers and sisters," she told Indo-Asian News Service.

But the family rejected her and Susanta Das said Jamuna was not fit to be his wife. Jamuna filed a complaint with the police and Susanta was arrested last week.

Trial marriages are common in Padmakesharipur, where all 500 families follow the decades-old custom of sending their daughters to the homes of young men who express an interest in taking them as their wives. The trial generally lasts a year, but needn't necessarily end in marriage.

Once a man makes his choice, a girl has to go to his home for a year and perform all the duties of a doting wife, including looking after his family and having sexual intercourse with him.

Jamuna's is not an isolated case. The village has about 60 unwed mothers, all having "failed" in trials with various men, inspector S K Chand of the Mancheswar police station told Indo-Asian News Service.

While several trials do end in marriage, more end in failure, Chand said. Jamuna is, however, the first unwed mother-to-be to approach the police, he said. Most prefer to have the matter settled within the village community.

"This case came to the police because the boy kept the girl for one-and-a-half-years, which was more than the trial period, and refused to marry her," Chand said. "The villagers tried to settle the matter but failed."

Kui Das, an unwed mother at 18 and another victim of a failed trial, said the villagers didn't consider the blatant exploitation of girls as illegal. "Nobody goes to the police station fearing social ostracism," she said.

"The main problem with the villagers is that they never marry girls or boys of other villages or from other communities. There are examples of girls marrying their own brothers in this village," said Sasmita Das, a member of a Bhubaneswar-based women's rights group.

"Even though the village is located on the outskirts of the capital city of Bhubaneswar, the administration has not taken any step to stop this heinous practice," she said.

Indo-Asian News Service

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