News (yet again)

It landed as no bombshell upon me when I read about P. Selvakumar marrying a dog near Tamil Nadu, in the News today. Such beliefs have been around for hundreds of generations now. Number of incidents reported of course has been cut down in number but they still prevail.

Why do such human and non human marriages occur? Superstition? Well, in P. Selvakumar case, yes. His marrying a dog is an attempt to atone for stoning two other dogs to death 15 years ago - an act he believes cursed him (His limbs paralyzed and hearing in one ear was impaired). After all the medicines and treatments proved ineffective, he decided to go through with the wedding which was suggested by an astrologer. There was feast after the wedding; the dog was treated a bun!

His is one of the many such cases in the world. People in rural India get their baby daughters married to dogs and baby sons married to cats to ward off a bad omen.

Superstition is not only the only reason. Some people marry animals because they ‘fall in love’ with them. Dogs and cats are not the only targets; horse, dolphins, cows, snakes also are choices for a human’s spouse.

I can’t decide whether it’s more unfair to the human getting married or more dreadful to the non human, animals they are getting their knot tied to. It’s rather sad, that not only uneducated but also knowledgeable people sometimes agree to such act. Though no government in any country has yet recognized such marriage as legal, but there’s no law against it as well. Neither have I ever read about animal rights activists protesting such a horrendous deed (I hope that’s not true though).

Something to notice: No feedback, from the family of the person getting married to an animal or the person himself/herself, about the curse being faded or bad omen been ward off has been received.

It’s merely insane!