Women living different lives - A lot done but a lot more to do

VERY few things in the West have changed as much for the better as the way a woman can imagine her life.

Today women can, indeed are expected to, have ambitions their mothers, certainly their grandmothers, could not have considered.

The change has been so great, so empowering, that even discussing women’s role in society seems anachronistic and runs the risk of causing unintended offence.

That is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the situation everywhere. Last week, the Indian supreme court delayed a decision on annulling the marriage of a 24-year-old woman and forcing her to return to her parents’ house because she married a Muslim.

The woman married in December but her father went to a local court demanding she be returned to his custody.

In May, that court nullified the marriage and sent the woman back to her parents’ home despite her clear wish not to do so.

That court described her as “weak and vulnerable” and said that “her marriage being the most important decision in her life, can also be taken only with the active involvement of her parents”.

Last week, the sub-continent’s supreme court ruled that India’s National Investigation Agency, which investigates terrorism, must consider if the woman converted freely or was part of a “love jihad” — a phrase used by Hindu extremists to suggest Muslim men are forcing Hindu women into marriage.

Imagine the outrage if an Irish court ordered that the Garda special branch investigate the motives behind a couple’s decision to marry. Batten down the hatches indeed.

That this happened in a country loudly celebrating the 70th anniversary of achieving its independence from British rule is, at best, ironic.

That it happened in a country that presents itself as a modern, quickly-changing society, suggests that those definitions are far more flexible than could ever have been imagined — even by the most charitable.

However, criticism from this country should be tempered by the memory of Matrimonia Mixta, the 1970 Vatican edict reminding Catholics of their obligation, if married to a non-Catholic, to ensure that any children of that union be raised as a Catholic.

It is easy to forget that, in their day — not so long ago — those assertions shaped our society.

How things have changed. Earlier this week, one of the great dividends of evolving social values, of embracing progress, was shown in the most dramatic way. Leaving Certificate results showed that girls outperformed boys in the vast majority of subjects.

Girls were awarded a higher proportion of top grades — grades one, two, or three — in 32 out of 38 subjects at higher level. Maths was one of just six subjects in which boys performed better at higher level.

Despite that, so much more needs to be done.

A better gender balance in top jobs, and pay equality are issues, and they show how slowly change comes dripping.

Sometimes, on a long, evolutionary journey, it is worthwhile to look back and wonder if we’ve made the right decisions.

In this instance, there can be no doubt but that we have — and we should celebrate that, rather than scoff at an India stuck in a time warp where women are still regarded as chattels.