On Monday one of my colleagues got her PAN card in the mail; sort of the Indian equivalent of a social security card; and she commented that it had her father's name listed on it. I checked mine and it has my dad's name there too. I remembered when I filled out the form having to mention "daughter of" but didn't actually notice that his name was there until just then.
On every official form I've had to fill out here I've had to mention who my father is so I decided to ask one of the guys in the office about this. My first question was - what if there is no father? What if a woman gets pregnant, doesn't marry the father and he isn't involved? This question was quite confusing to him and he replied quite simply "I don't think these things happen in India".
Next question; when he fills out a form does he have to mention who his father is? The answer is no. When a woman fills things out she must state who either her father or husband (if she is married) is. When a man fills a form out he just is himself. To which I said "so a woman has to belong to someone but a man is his own person" and the response was a very matter of fact "yes". It occurred to him after he answered that it was a bit of a double standard; but that's just the way it is.
I wonder how long it will be before that changes and women don't have to belong to someone. Probably will be quite a while since it seems to be only us silly foreigners that ask questions like this.
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