March 8, 2013. 

On this International Women's Day, I realise that there is a thread of feminism throughout Unsuitable Girl.  This is a surprise to me as I am not a rabid feminist by any means.

However most of the women in Unsuitable Girl are found 'unsuitable.'  Either they are too dark, too white, too educated, too independently minded, not submissive enough  to fit into the ways of a community which has its economic survival premised upon the survival of the joint family system. 

There is no coersion involved, only subtle expectations inculcated from birth.  It is a very gentle smothering love, with interlaced tentacles throughout the various communities.

Has this theme emerged unconsciously?  My observations are of another culture, one which is seeking to retain its own particular ways of keeping a joint family system alive and functioning here in 2013 UK. Each member of such units benefit financially.  Well the males do!

A daughter moves out of the family homes to live in her husband's family home.  Hence the need to fit in to an existing joint family structure.

I have no problems with that aim. There are many benefits of such a social system.

However when the girls who have grown up in this country are judged to be 'too independent' or 'too educated'  or 'too westernised' to be 'suitable ' for marriage into joint families living here, resulting in brides from India or  other parts of the world-wide diaspora of Indians, I think it is time to stop and think.

What of the Indian girls who are here, are British, are educated, are earning their own salaries? In this in between time of assimilation, of fusion of identity, are they going to be left with no choice but to find their own white male partners?

Can a girl really in 2013 be regarded as too educated?