Last Legal Form of Slavery

Is it possible for slavery to still be a common practice despite the belief that it was abolished over a hundred years ago?
While many would argue that slavery has been long abolished, it is in fact a torture that many people experience in the present day. Marriage –heterosexual marriage that is- has been a long standing tradition through which women have been reduced to functional slavery.
Historically, marriage is recognized by religion, law and society. Society recognizes two people living together as a marriage because they are sharing responsibility. Law condemns marriage as a contract that springs to life through a civil process. On its part, religion blesses a marriage. A marriage usually takes places in order to provide for legal, social and economic stability, the necessary accommodation for the formation of a family unit with the procreation, nurturing and education of children. It also legitimizes sexual relations. Some people feel the need to make a public declaration of affection and marriage is used as a tool for such declaration, but there are also those who marry to obtain citizenship thus marriage is also a business.
In order for a marriage to be recognized as legitimate it needs to be consummated. The failure to do so would provide for a genuine justification to invalidate the marriage. Also, in most societies the death of one of the partners marks the end of the marriage while in others this only applies when the woman dies; otherwise the woman must be buried with her husband’s body (as is required by the Hindu religion) . In many others, a divorce is also accepted as a way to terminate the marriage.
However, a marriage does not end there. As slaves were bought and deprived of their freedom and compelled to work, so were women in the ancient days. There is a slight difference with the present state of slavery experienced by women; they are not longer economically bought as objects. However, they are largely still denied their freedom and are constrained to doing a work they do not necessarily enjoy or was part of their desires. In the present day, a diamond ring is usually the device used by a man to ask a woman in marriage. When the “right man” has the “right ring,” a woman agrees to marriage. But this only symbolizes how a slave is only sold to the person willing to pay the “right price.”
In the past, the groom’s family had to pay a “bride price” which paid for the right to marry the women he had chosen. In other cases, a dowry has to be paid by the bride’s family to the groom which further sentences women not only as objects, but as rather invaluable objects if the family of the bride must pay the groom to marry her. The financial transaction that takes place between the groom and the bride’s family does not at any given moment considers the bride as the person that she is. After the marriage, the now wife became known as the property of the husband and was often called “his property.” In this sense marriage was a simple market transaction in which the wife became a slave to her husband since he owned her.
In the same way, a woman was thought to be the property of her parents. Nevertheless, since the man was considered the owner of everything then she was directly a property of her father. Thus, the father would walk her down the aisle (which is still a common practice) as a way to signify his delivering her to her new owner. Through marriage, then, a woman merely changed owners.
Even though this is not as drastic in the present day, women are still bound in most societies to a functional slave state when they marry. Women must give up their professional careers, if any, in order to have children and take care of them. Marriage for women draws a parallel with giving an alcoholic a soup of wine because they are mocked with the need to taste the heaven of which many speak knowing that it is not necessary beneficial to their public and private persona.
Redefine marriage into an equally divided set of responsibilities, obligations and joys, but without the institution behind it; or, is the infamous diamond ring such a necessity as to be worth playing the role of the condemned submissive slave? Nonetheless, the fear of loneliness prevails for many.

xoxo,

Poison Drops

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