Most social customs revolve around the institution of the family. And the family, or home, is the woman’s domain. So let’s face the fact that women play a significant role in perpetuating decadent social customs.
Women dominate family affairs no matter how much subjugated they are in other matters of life. But their dominance is pathetic. Because the dominance is over petty, superfluous things masked by the disproportionate importance attached to them. By women themselves. Who else?
Social change is a complicated phenomenon. It is weird. Because it brings in its wake an erosion of values you’d have liked to preserve. It is frightening. Because it doesn’t move an inch the system you wish to wipe out.
Why does a society cling so stubbornly to cumbersome, decadent customs while losing grip on norms tangible and functional? Does this show a deep malaise, a tendency towards self-destruction?
Perhaps it does. I see no other explanation of the almost pathological perseverance and archaic glorification of the customs that go with marriage.
Zeenat Hisam 