Some girls are dedicated to the goddess at age two or three. They won’t actually enter into sex work until they reach puberty at around twelve. The girls most at risk of being dedicated will have grown up in very matriarchal Devadasi communities. There aren’t any men. They don’t have fathers. So there probably is some understanding from a young age that they’re not from traditional families, they don’t have husbands.
The girls probably won’t have a real understanding of the sex work element until what they call their ‘first night’. This is when their virginity is sold to a local man, normally the highest bidder. He might be a local farmer, landowner or businessman. Some of them say, “I was dedicated to the goddess, but I didn’t know this was what was expected.”
Don't they all point the way to God by different paths?
Blah blah blahbbity blah...
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2 comments:
It's grimly amusing that the writer tries a sleight of hand to try to fob off the evils of the practice on the arrival of "Christian missionaries."
The film shows how much the tradition has deteriorated over the centuries. Specifically in the 19th Century when the Christian missionaries came, the Devadasi became less well thought of.
Riiiiight. Blame the Christers. Before Christians arrive: a high class talent agency for appreciated women. After: child prostitution.
Sure.
She gives the game away later, natch:
When I first went to India I thought some of the women might consider it a kind of honour to be a Devadasi, because of it is an act of religious devotion. Sexuality and divinity are very closely entwined in the Hindu faith. Religion is closely linked to sexuality and beauty.
Another romanticised leftist myth shattered and flushed down the crapper of reality.
Johann Hari been out there to shout at them with a megaphone? Thought not.
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