Vedic India?

[Guest guest]

>Westerners, however, suffer through marriage after divorce after marriage

>after divorce, etc. Not all of them, but certainly much more than their

>Indian counterparts.

 

Hmmmmm.... sounds like *somewhat* of an overgeneralization. But it's true,

these are problems, although I wouldn't generalize it to all westerners.

 

>Yes, and when they grow up, they also have a more difficult time with

>aspects of life, like marriage. Generally, Indian couples usually get along

>well with each other. And even if they don't, they still somehow manage to

>pull through.

 

Here are some facts: 95% of the Indian men (80% Hindu, who were mostly

Vaisnavas) who show up in the dermatology clinics of two large Mumbai

hospitals had visited sex workers in the past 3 months. 63% of them

reported that they got drunk on a regular basis, 16% of the men in one

hospital and 39% in another hospital reported having had anal sex with

other men in the past 3 months. Outreach workers can tell you which parks,

train stations and public restrooms where this happens. (same in Delhi and

Calcutta) and I can forward that information to anyone who wants to check

for himself.

 

They were in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

 

And for those of you who are convinced that these kinds of things only

happen in the big cities due to excessive western influence:

 

In the 4 health care clinics in rural south India that I visited,

alcoholism and domestic violence were the two biggest problems. Health

care workers from the rest of India who attended a conference in Chennai in

November all spoke of these problems as being prevalent in their

communities too, so it can hardly be called an isolated phenomenon. Women

were being beaten when they complained that their husbands had spent the

family's money on alcohol, so that the children were going hungry. They

were also being beaten when they requested health care.

 

Yes, it's true that most women still stay in their marriages. What other

alternatives are there for them if they don't want to get shunned? But

given the misery the families of these men have to endure as a consequence,

I'm not sure we can point to this situation as an example for us to follow.

STDs are also rampant in these settings due to extra-marital sex among the

men. HIV is not that prevalent yet (as far as we know) , but given those

behavior patterns and prevalence of other STDs, it's only a matter of time

before HIV infections become big problems in these areas too. I saw women

who were widowed at 16-25 due to having been married to much older HIV

infected men in these areas. Those women were now also infected, even

though they had only had sex with their husbands, and they had *no future*.

Their in-laws frequently threw them out after their husbands died, and were

only interested in keeping their uninfected male grandchildren, if there

were any.

 

The only positive sign in those villages was the fact that some women had

started organizing and borrowing money to start their own home-based

businesses. The banks were happy because the women were much better that

the men in terms of repaying their loans, and the money they made was more

likely to actually go to feeding and clothing the children.

 

Indian truck drivers (nation wide) who were interviewed at several rest

stops reported an average of 20 sex partners per month. These encounters

included both male and female sex workers, as well as their co-drivers

(assistants) giving them blow jobs.

 

In Manipur, 80% of the injection drug users (and there are many, given its

proximity to Burma) are HIV positive and are now beginning to infect their

wives and unborn children.

 

Due to all these slightly less than moral behaviors among Indians

(primarily men), India now has more HIV infections than any other country

in the world and the rate is increasing quickly.

 

So please before you go on another "Indian couples are superior to Western

couples" trip again, please look at the whole picture. It's not as idyllic

as you make it seem here in COM cyberspace.

 

Ys,

Madhusudani dasi