Arrangements of arranged marriage III: Why (Indian) Women keep more fasts than men?

This all started when my friend (addressed here as b2) asked me (addressed here as Jaz) a question which was slightly angled towards gender bias. The answer that I gave her forms the theme of this blog.

B2: Saawan ka month jaz ...r u fasting?

Jaz: I don’t fast ever b2….

B2: Obviously, why will you fast, in the Indian tradition…only girls fast, (though) I never get the logic.

Jaz: It’s a very simple logic…girls have way higher demand than men…so they have to fast more.

So for my international readers, ‘Saawan’ is the month of monsoon rains in India. This month is traditionally dedicated to the worship of lord Shiva- the God of destruction. It is believed that if a girl fasts all the Mondays in this month and worships lord Shiva, she would get the groom of her choice. Similarly there are fasts for Tuesdays dedicated lord Hanuman, the God of strength. On Thursdays it is dedicated to lord Vrahaspati (Indian version of Jupiter planet). On Friday for Santoshi Mata, the goddess of power and she is deemed to fulfill all the wishes. On Saturday for lord Shani (or Indian version of planet Saturn), who seems to bring you a very bad luck if he is unhappy and a very good luck if he is happy with you. (I am not kidding, one of my ex room- mate believes that his recent attack of shingles was due to Lord Shani and he pleases lord Shani by having Jack Daniel’s every Saturday night). Sunday fasts are for the Sun God (wasn’t hard to guess, I know).

All of these fasts are mostly tailor-made for women. They hand pick one of the days of the week (some brave ones more than one) in some part of their lives and try to please that specific God. As the tale goes, Goddess Parvati won lord Shiva by keeping the Monday fasts; ladies today try to repeat the fact (not sure if they finally get Shiva). Apart from the fasts mentioned above I have seen the ladies going in for two more fasts: Karvachauth, which is for the long life of the husband (these days even fiancées and boyfriends) and Sakat, which is for the long life of the son.

Now, why are only women being pestered? Why do they need to keep all the fasts while men don’t? Well the answer is really very simple. The fact is the ladies demands are way higher than men’s. They need to go for the Monday fasts for getting a groom of their dreams; one who is handsome, smart, earns well, has a stable future (I don’t need to read the list- you already know it). For men, 2 pegs down, any woman is The woman of his dreams. For women once they get married, they generally don’t want their husbands to die (its not only about the money, but who wants to go through the trouble of more Mondays to find a new groom?). Hence, The ‘karvachauth’. Men do not need to fast on karvachauth, because once married, they pray every day for their women to leave them (here the demands are quite contrary to what can be fulfilled by keeping fasts).

A fact that most of the girls are forced by their moms to go through the fasting process shows that men are somehow disconnected and disassociated with this fasting process. Is there a data to support this fasting process? Like, did anyone (with the exception of Parvati) get the groom of her dreams?  The answer is who cares for that when so many people are getting fooled without looking at the data?

For us, we men look at the data actually. So we see people working out at the gym and building muscles, which leads often to the creation of huge impression on girls. Hence we take steroids, protein and work out daily at the gym. Often impress girls.

Conclusion: Statistical approach and result oriented exercises lead to finding better matches than blind faith.