MARRIAGE, INFIDELITY AND DIVORCE: A COMPARISON BETWEEN THESE

SUBJECTS IN INDIAN CULTURE AND WESTERN CULTURE AND THEIR

IMPORTANCE IN JHUMPA LAHIRIS SHORT STORIES
Marcos Gonzlez
Universidad de Los Andes

Abstract
The notion of family is an important one in Indian culture, and it is a predominant subject in
Jhumpa Lahiris Interpreter of Maladies. This essay will focus on the role of marriage,
infidelity, and divorce in Indian and Western culture and their importance in two of Lahiris short
stories, A Temporary Matter and Sexy.

Marriage, Infidelity and Divorce: A Comparison between These Subjects in Indian Culture and
Western Culture and Their Importance in Jhumpa Lahiris Short Stories
Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of nine short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri, an
Indian American author, and published in 1999. It was critically acclaimed, and it won a
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, among other accolades. The stories in this book features a
wide variety of themes, such as religion and tradition, the experiences lived by immigrants,
partition, and relationships. In the field of relationships, Interpreter of Maladies explores
the dynamic between parents and children, and also the one between lovers. Marriage,
infidelity and divorce are common in these stories, but are these common in Indian culture?
What is the general concept about this elements, and how do these concepts differ from
those of the western culture? This essay will elaborate on the first two subjects, and what
role do these play in A Temporary Matter and Sexy.
First of all, it is important to work on the importance of marriage in Indian culture, and how
this subject is perceived in this culture. One of the main events in an Indian family is a wedding.
It is regarded as something very special, and deemed essential for virtually everyone in India
(Heitzman and Worden, 1995). It is so important, that for Hindu dharma (behaviours considered
to be in order with rta, the order that renders life and universe possible, and that includes rights,
laws, duties, and the right way of living), marriage is sensed as a sacrament and not a contract,
a commitment that will last a lifetime, and the most important bond between a man and a
woman; it is a mean to spiritual growth, for man and women are soul mates. As Heitzman and
Worden note,
For the individual, marriage is the great watershed in life, marking the transition to
adulthood. Generally, this transition, like everything else in India, depends little upon individual

volition but instead occurs as a result of the efforts of many people. Even as one is born into a
particular family without the exercise of any personal choice, so is one given a spouse without
any personal preference involved. () Marriage alliances entail some redistribution of wealth as
well as building and restructuring social realignments, and, of course, result in the biological
reproduction of families.
These arranged marriages are normal in India, to the point some parents even start to
arrange their children marriage since they are born, and even though stories about prepuberty
marriage for girls was the rule, there are cases where, in rural areas like Rajasthan, children
under the age of five are to be united through marriage.
India can be divided in two main regions, the north and the south, in regard to marriage
practices. For example, in the north, families try to find a spouse that is not related to them by
blood ties, the Hindu bride goes to live with people she has never known; in the south
relationships with blood relatives are highly encouraged, and there is almost no distinction
between the families that are going to be united by the wedding. Nevertheless, while Indian
children are raised with the expectation that their weddings will be arranged, young people (and
commonly the college-educated) are finding their own spouses, and some of them even convince
their parents to arrange to people with whom they are in love.
This proves to be quite different from the Western point of view of marriage, where in most
cases an individual marries someone he/she considers he/she loves. Marriage is also deemed as a
union that happens between two individuals that have no ties whatsoever, and even though Carl
E. Zimmerman in Family and Civilization (2008) considered familism (this is, marriage, family,
and reproduction) as a key element of Western society, the current state of it in America, one of
the main pillars in this society, is slowly decaying. William H. Young (2011) writes that In 2010

married couples dropped below half of all households for the first time in American history.
According to the Census Bureau, married couples represented just 48 percent of American
households, far below the 78 percent of households occupied by married couples in 1950.
Marriage, therefore, is no longer considered as vital and essential for society as it is still
considered in Indian culture.
Infidelity, in the other hand, can be a very tricky matter to discuss. According to the doctor
Thilaka Ravi from the website Medindia.net,
Infidelity rarely comes out of the closet in Indian society. For the sake of family honor a
spouse will choose to ignore a partner's extramarital affair and silently suffer a cheating
husband/wife or independently try patch-up measures, rather than publicize the matter and attract
social stigma.
Vikash Anand, a man from India who was interviewed for this essay, describes that men
used to have more than one woman in the past (it did not matter if it was against the first wifes
wish). It was normal, but it generally happened in rich families. Infidelity, he says, is considered
taboo in our society Women were not allowed to have more than one partner, for they were
taught that Pati is Parmeshwar (in other words, the husband is equivalent to a god), and if they
were caught they would be cast out from society and/or brutally punished. They were not
allowed to marry after their husband died and had to live as widows for the rest of their lives, and
sometimes they would be burned with their deceased husband (Sati Pratha), as depicted in Jules
Vernes Around the World in Eighty Days. Anand continues by saying that people has recently
stopped considering infidelity as a sin, but in the bigger picture it is still a taboo, even though
both men and women are equally responsible for infidelity. This is confirmed by a survey
conducted by the website for married people Ashley Madison, and revealed that 76% of Indian

and 61% of men did not think that infidelity was a sin or was immoral. However, there are still
isolated cases of burning women in villages because of an infidelity accusation.
But how is this subject deemed in Western society? In many religions of the world, such as
Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, adultery is considered as a sin, often punishable
with hell after death (Vishnu Purana 3:11). Adultery still remains illegal in 21 states across the
United States, but these laws are barely applied, and in states like New York it is considered only
as a misdemeanor, reports Tim Murphy for Motherjones.com. All European nations have
decriminalized adultery, and while it is not considered as a criminal offence, it does have legal
consequences in cases such as divorce proceedings. Western countries seem to be slowly
stopping to consider infidelity as something dreadful, even though that it is still considered by
puritans and religious as something bad. The website Divorce Resistance states that
Adultery is not only not protected and encouraged by the courts, but also it is no longer
condemned by society. In TV, movies, and popular culture, often it is the heroes rather than the
villians who are involved in extramarital relations. Everybody cheers when James Bond goes to
bed with the villian's wife. Fooling around is considered a trivial and unimportant matter at
worst, and it might be considered as proof of the virility or femininity of the cheater. The sanctity
of marriage is considered as old-fashioned and outmoded.
We can see then a nuance in the perception of infidelity between Indian and Western
culture, while both consider it mostly as something bad, it still admitted (in different ways) by
these two cultures.
As for divorce, Anand states that this was considered as a western influence and
condemned, but now people are more open to it, and it is happening more than it used to, but
once you are married you have to work it out, because marriage is considered sacred. But the

stigma against divorce in India is slowly fading, as it is becoming more and more common, and
the divorce rate is rising, even though there are no official national statistics about it. Anyhow,
this is not always a good choice for women, because they will probably lose more than they will
actually win. As Lakshmi Chaudhry writes for Firstpost.com, The end of even the worst
marriage usually spells disaster for the average Indian woman. She cites that, for example, there
is not joint custody, and the titles (like the car, the house, or any property) most often belong to
the man. Also, when a woman has a case, she often cannot afford the legal battle, and if they win
the divorce, divorcees are shunned and ostracized, except in very liberal cities. Some women
often chose to stay married, because as Kirti Singh, a lawyer fighting for womens right in India,
says to The New York Times, Most of these emanate from the social and financial pressures that
divorced women are left to face. () Even if a woman does go to the court, in most cases it is an
uneven fight between a man and her....
As for divorce in Western culture, there is little to explain. Divorce is much more common
now than it was in the 18th or the 19th century. As expressed by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in The
Divorce Culture, Divorce is now part of everyday American life (it) has become so pervasive
that many people naturally assume it has seeped into the social and cultural mainstream over a
long period of time. (Dafoe, 1997).
Now, examples of marriage and the beginning of a divorce can be seen in A Temporary
Matter, a story that tells the loss of love in Shukumar and Shobas marriage. They might live in
the same place, but they are set apart because they are now strangers. The power outages from
the reparation helps them to be closer, to the point where they start making love again, and even
share some secrets. That is no reason for Shoba, anyhow, to change her mind from leaving, for
she had prepared already a life without him. With the Indian and Western notions about marriage

and married life, we can infer that the depiction of marriage in this story is a mix of these two
ideas, because even when we see that these two individuals were united by love and they
initially may have had the intention of remaining together forever, circumstances like work and
the death of a child split them apart.
Another example of marriage, infidelity and divorce can be seen in Sexy. Dev is a
married man, but that does not stop him from cheating on his wife. This story is seen from
Mirandas point of view. She is a young and inexperienced woman in Boston, and she has a
coworker named Laxmi, who is slightly older than Miranda, but who is already married and
settled. She gossips about her cousin, who has been left by her husband under rather
unconventional circumstances. Miranda, while aware of this conflict, continues to have an affair
with Dev, until she decides to cut any contact with him after a long interaction with Laxmis
nephew, Rohin. In one hand, infidelity is quite similar in this story as it is in India, where a man
can cheat on his wife with no signs of remorse, while he is able to do it because of his position as
a powerful Indian man with a good economic position. We can see that this affects Miranda in a
way, for she is the mistress, and the possible destroyer of a family as it was happening with
Laxmis marriage. We can see both sides of a coin here, the mistress and the hurt wife. Divorce,
on the other hand, is shown in a more Western manner, for even though Laxmis cousin is from
Indian ascendance, she is shown to be decided to leave her husband for good.
In the end, it can be said that marriage, infidelity and divorce are very intricate subjects that
are somehow difficult to tackle on, since they have many differences for example, the notion of
marriage in Indian culture differs a lot from the Western notion of it, yet they still have some
similarities in many points such as infidelity and how it is perceived by these two cultures.
Maybe these differences and similarities are crucial in the task of helping Lahiris stories in

giving them an air of reality and accuracy that makes them easy to relate and understand, to be
credible, to be easy to identify as something that can happen in a world where multiculturalism is
becoming more and more predominant. It can be concluded, therefore, that while Indian and
Western cultures vary and differ in many points, they still hold some similarities in some others,
and this is quite fortunate, for it helps Lahiri to convey what she wants to tell through the art of
storytelling.

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