Marriage equality is still not a reality for disabled people in India

Marriage of Disabled Man or Woman is a most challenging topic, probably more challenging their own physical challenges. Their physical challenges demand assistance in a little bit of walking, cooking, or reaching out to some farther spaces/locations. Unfortunately, it is wrongly perceived that physical challenges mean there is trouble with “building physical relations” also for Divyaang persons.

This misconception will take ages, at least in India, to rectify its perception towards persons with disabilities, and till then, society will blame Karma of “Divyaang persons” for their different Body given by God (either by birth or due to accident) and make Marriage ratio of persons with disabilities threatening.

Misconceptions I would like to bring upon:

• Disabled people can marry disabled only.
• Disabled People on getting married will give birth to Disabled Children only.
• Disabled people can not be physically attractive to enter into a relationship with Normal Bodied person.
• Disabled People may not be compatible with Normal Bodied person’s daily routine to carry out a relationship smoothly in day-to-day life.
• It is a prestige issue if Normal Bodied is married to a disabled partner. If Normal Body with Disabled body marriage has happened, society considers that there are no options available to normal bodies person or its misfortune of Normal bodies persons that they got Disabled partners.

And the basic reason behind all these misconceptions is that – persons with disabilities is viewed with Sympathy and not Empathy.

Unless there are Empathetic love and affection towards a person with disability and incorporation of their special needs in daily life, I don’t think they are any less than normal bodied persons and thus getting married irrespective of physical challenges will become very easy.

One step further, I would like to mention the challenge of getting married to a disabled woman is even more difficult. Nowadays, many women have outshined from Kitchen to Workplaces and made their own identity. But still, there is a major chunk still stuck into their kitchen, and here comes another perception for a woman with a disability that her discomfort of cooking regular meals due to the inaccessible kitchen has made their life miserable by not letting them get married to normal bodied Man. Making it compulsory to find a man with a disability for her is not always easy with other sets of restrictions like – Religion, caste, looks, education, financial stability, etc.

And since women of India are majorly associated with kitchen skills, even outshined women who have successfully broken the norms and excelled in their job or entrepreneurship career face these issues of being seen as an incompetent candidate for marriage for a normal bodied man.

A disabled woman’s competency should be evaluated equally while looking out for a suitable partner for her. If she is doing her entire routine, which is fantastic and financially independent, then why not a normal bodied man be looking for such women and bring a quality change in the stereotype set by the society for centuries?

This way, even we will solve the overall imbalanced marriage ratio in the society created due to the man vs. woman ratio imbalance. If we see more quality marriages happening with the disabled community to normal bodied communities, then there will be a lesser imbalance in marriages happening nationwide and worldwide, eventually compensating other issues of marriages like caste/religion/education/financial stabilities, etc.