The Deadly Preference For Male Children In Our Society

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. But not everyone seems to believe in this adage. What delights most is the sight of a male child. And this, unfortunately, is the bitter truth. The preference for male children has taken such strong roots in the society that the birth of a boy and girl recently at a hospital in Nalgonda district of Telangana turned into a bone of contention between two young mothers.

Both the mothers staked claim on the boy. What added to the confusion was the error on the part of a nurse who told the woman who gave birth to the girl that she was blessed with a boy. The sight of newborns moves even the stone-hearted. Who wouldn’t like to hug and kiss them? But these women could feel compassion only for the baby boy. Hours ticked by as the cuddly kids lay on the hospital bed hungry and unattended.

All pleas to breast-feed the babies fell on deaf ears ­— the women would suckle only the boy and not the girl. Whatever happened to human kindness? The matter remains unresolved as it now awaits report of a DNA test.

The whole episode is sickening and a sad commentary on the current state of humanity. When traditional man-woman roles seem to be reversing, many still yearn for the male child. This obsession is playing havoc with the basic fabric of the society. Sex-selective abortions are on the rise, despite being banned. The rich and the influential fly to countries where it is permissible to get abortions after the sex of the foetus is determined. All this has led to an adverse gender balance. Census data indicates that the number of girls per 1,000 boys has dropped from 910 in 2011 to 898 in 2013.

The son fixation has deep social and cultural roots in the Asian countries. Even during the pre-Islamic times it held sway. The Arabs had then attributed sons to themselves and daughters to Allah. When someone gave news of the birth of a girl, their faces turned pale and gloom took over them.

Should they keep her and suffer contempt or bury her in the dust. This was the question that bothered them. The modern man has overcome this barbaric form of burying alive baby girls. He simply snuffs out life in the womb and calls it abortion, an euphemism for murder.

There is no hue and cry about the countless girls who are not allowed to see the light of day. Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, calls them missing women.  Some families are so son-centric that they end up with half a dozen girls in the hope of producing at least one male baby. Though India is religious by nature we don’t have firm faith that it is God who gives daughters to whom He wills and sons to whom He wills and both to whom He wills and makes barren whom He wills. Nor do we have the scientific temperament to believe that it is an X and a Y chromosome that determines the gender of the baby.

Even among the educated and urban couples, the son-only-syndrome persists. Economic factor also drives this mania.Moreover, boys are looked upon as budhape ka sahara (security in old age). They take care of education and marriage of younger siblings, perform the last rites of parents and most importantly, bring in the dowry.

On the other hand daughters are considered a liability — a paraya dhan (someone else’s wealth) so to say. For this reason many are stingy with regard to spending on girl’s education as it would only benefit their husband’s families. If aversion to girl child is only because of dowry and marriage expenses, couldn’t something be done to root out this menace? Gender equality will not come with mere ‘save girl child’ slogans. As an anonymous wit put it:

A son is a son till he gets his wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life. If you pray for a child, pray for a righteous child — not a boy or girl.

- J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in The New Indian Express

Dated December 7,2015.