Flushing Brides

In India, more women demand toilets before marriage
By EMILY WAX/Washington Post

NILOKHERI, India — An ideal groom in this dusty farming village is a vegetarian, does not drink, has good prospects for a stable job and promises his bride-to-be an amenity in high demand: a toilet.

In rural India, many young women are refusing to marry unless the suitor furnishes their future home with a bathroom, freeing them from the inconvenience and embarrassment of using community toilets or squatting in fields.

About 665 million people in India — about half the population — lack access to latrines. But since a "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign started about two years ago, 1.4 million toilets have been built here in the northern state of Haryana, some with government funds, according to the state's health department.

Women's rights activists call the program a revolution as it spreads across India's vast and largely impoverished rural areas.

"I won't let my daughter near a boy who doesn't have a latrine," said Usha Pagdi, who made sure that her daughter Vimlas Sasva, 18, finished high school and took courses in electronics at a technical school.

"No loo? No 'I do,' " Vimlas said, laughing as she repeated a radio jingle.

"My father never even allowed me an education," Pagdi said, stroking her daughter's hair in their half-built shelter near a lagoon strewn with trash. "Every time I washed the floors, I thought about how I knew nothing. Now, young women have power. The men can't refuse us."

This is how it starts fellas. First they ask for a toilet and it ends with pre-nups and sugardaddy.com. But this is the natural evolution of things. As women strive for quality in far away lands its all begins with baby steps. Like asking for a toilet. And if that scene from 'Slumdog Millionaire' is any indication of the alternative then this baby step couldn't come sooner. Charmin is about to gain a prosperous new territory!