“ I vow to help you love life, to always hold you with tenderness.. to speak when words are needed and to share the silence when they are not... to live within the warmth of your heart and always call it home.” - Paige to Leo, The Vow

Beautiful, right? Just makes you think of hearts and roses. But unfortunately vows like these are restricted to the silver screen and Nicholas Sparks' novels. In reality, wedding vows are archaic, sexist and in desperate need of a rewrite. Don’t let the designer lehengas fool you ladies, the true weight of oppression is hidden in those vows. Under the guise of the cypher like Sanskrit shlokas, these vows are making our modern woke women make promises that would confiscate their feminist cards in a jiffy! Recently, Dia Mirza was applauded for choosing a woman priest to conduct her wedding ceremony and doing away with the regressive rituals of Kanyadaan and Bidaayi.  

However, not all women can afford a fairytale-like wedding. While there is a growing awareness regarding the wedding vows- they seem to sneak back into our lives during the wedding season, irrespective of how progressive we are. But then, should we bother about these vows? They’re just rituals after all. Who says we have to live by them every day? Then why commit to them? Why should we invite these old gender roles to our modern-day weddings? If they have no relevance in our day to day lives, shouldn’t we amend the vows to reflect that? What’s stopping us? Tackling centuries of oppression requires more than just lip service to equality. We have to put our money (read: marriage), where our mouth is! And, give the Indian wedding ceremony a feminist makeover. How? Read on for our Badass Bride suggestions

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