I Have to Belong to a Man

I finally got my PAN card this week. This little card ensures my residency and saves me 100 rupees($2) to tourist sites in Delhi while only asking that in return I pay taxes...that's fair, right? It was supposed to be a 3 week process that lasted 5 months and after the 3rd rejection was what I suspect, pushed along with a healthy reward. On this card it has my squished Smirf-like picture, some holigrams, my full name, and then my Father's full name.

Interesting...On all of my formal documents, registration, lease, bank enrollment they all ask, "name of your father."

Alison and I were discussing this at work and then she calls over Mohit for some clarification:

"So, Mohit, what happens in the case that there is no father...I mean, what if a woman gets pregnant and there is no father, what do you put on the application?"

"What do you mean there is no father? That doesn't happen in India. You either put your father or husbands name."

"Okay, well what if you are not married and you don't have a husband?"

"Like if your father passed away? You would just put N/A or late."

"Well, let me put it this way, your wife has to put your name on her information correct? Saying she belongs to you?"

"Yes"

"Do you have to put your wife's name saying you belong to her?

"No, I would put my father."

"Okay, so she has to belong to you but you don't belong to her...Do I have to belong to a man"

Very definitely..."Yes."

Okay.

So it's just another one of those things that I don't quite get, but I go along with to make life easier. Hopefully some of these older patriarchal rules will diminish with time and eventually men will have to belong to their women as well.