SHILLONG, JULY 18: The Meghalaya State Commission for Women on June 23, 2023 organized a one day seminar on “Socio-Economic Status of Single Mothers”. To my understanding, single mothers can be categorized into two groups. The first group are those who are divorced or widowed and this is a universal problem cutting across communities, religion and boundaries. But there are possibilities of financial arrangements and maintenance for them and you can get statistics on the number of widowed and divorced women because of the availability of records on deaths and divorce cases.
But in our matrilineal Meghalaya where compulsory registration of marriages is yet to be made mandatory, the other group of single mothers is more about abandoned mothers/women. In this matrilineal society where many still give priority to the Kurs and the Knis rather than to the family and the father even in their day to day living, it makes it even more easier for a man to walkout of an unregistered marriage without giving any maintenance for the wife and children who are left at the mercy and financial positions of these almost outdated institutions and authorities, especially in relation to this subject of abandoned women with children and the increasing number of orphanages.
The impact of these abandoned women with children especially in the case of families with many children as witnessed in the rural areas, coupled with poverty, is for all to see and read in the media that reports from time to time. These media reports about Meghalaya having the highest cases of teenage pregnancies, high child marriages and a high rate of trafficking which our young boys and girls are vulnerable to, is a cause for concern.
The Maitshaphrang had been instrumental in campaigning for the Meghalaya Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act, 2012 but which is yet to be implemented, as one of the solutions to this problem. But despite the negative media reports of the problems arising from such abandoned marriages, this is still not a priority for many of those who are in power whether it’s in the political or religious institutions.
Abandoned mothers with children are difficult to get statistics in our society because of unregistered marriages and our society’s acceptance of multi-fathered children in a family because they still belong to the same clan/kur as the mother’s kur. In such a situation the correct statistics of single and abandoned mothers will be much higher than the official figures as stated by the MSWC.
As one of the solutions to this rampant abandonment of women with children in our society, the Maitshaphrang had petitioned the government to make the Registration of Marriage certificate mandatory for all official purposes as stated in the principal Act of 2012 and define official purposes as those purposes as required for producing the Scheduled Tribe certificate.
In conclusion, this is basically a women’s problem and it is for the women of our state to take the lead to solve them if they are really concerned about the problems faced by their fellow women and not confining this concern to a ‘one day talking shop’ because if this problem is not dealt with from the initial stage we’re afraid that this vicious cycle of exploitation will carry forward from mothers to their children and their grandchildren after that.
By Our Reporter
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