Indians and infertility - blaming the woman

Indians have really shallow mindsets, especially in the issue of infertility, that it’s always the woman who is having the problem. The logic is based on the biological onus that it is the woman who carries so the problem is with hers only.

A reader messaged us with her story where her mother-in-law insisted she do a check up just because she suffered a miscarriage after having a son. Her son is proof of her fertility and yet the MIL keeps implying that she’s the problematic one, ignoring the fact that her son could be the problem.

See, pregnancy happens when sex happens. Sex happens between two people, male and female. Just like girls are the only ones blamed as sluts for having premarital sex, in marriage, if the couple shows a little lateness in having children, Indian people are quick to blame the wife for being childless. My question is, when these Indians are going to learn science, gender neutral science?

I see machas tongues wagging, that women shouldn’t drink and smoke because they can have infertility issues and baby being affected in the womb. True enough but those habits also affect the fertility of males, for example, low sperm count. And there are countless other factors that cause infertility in both sexes which can be overcome by the correct medical intervention.

Indian aunties need to learn science - men have infertility problems as well. Don’t shame ladies by prodding them only to go see a fertility doctor. Ask both of the husband and wife to undergo fertility checkups. If you keep the blaming the wife when the defect is with the husband, then how on earth will the problem be solved?

Also, there is a discernible discrimination towards married meenachis who are childless - given the same isolation and shun as widows, from doing marriage rituals, kononnya her bad raasi (bad aura) will pummel saturnine into the lives of the going to be betrothed couple. It doesn’t matter if she or her husband is having the problem, the brunt is on the wife. In the movie Kalyana Samayal Saadham the groom has some kind of puthra dhosham (child dilemma) but it is the bride who has to do the parigharam (countering ritual). Why the burden and compunction of being childless are always imposed on women?

Infertility is a problem that is gender blind and modern medicine has figured out many ways to deal with it. Stop only blaming women for being childless and worse for having only daughters. Gender of a baby is determined by the father, ‘Y’ chromosome that is carried by the sperm that forms a male baby. You’ve got Internet. Don’t make excuses for sounding like an ignorant ass.