Why Does the Bride’s Family Seem “Lower”?

Question

There’s one more question that came up. When we were reading the passage about Sita Ji’s story, there was a line that said something like: “When a daughter is married, even if the groom’s family is of a lower lineage, the father of the bride still faces humiliation.” This was clearly mentioned in the text.

Yes, that line did appear, and it naturally raises a question.

So the question is this: When we look at it from today’s point of view — say, in the last thirty, forty, or fifty years — the marriage system that we have now often shows that the groom’s side tends to dominate, and such situations of disrespect or pressure do occur. So it almost sounds as if what was written reflects today’s social picture — as if the scripture were describing current times.

So does this mean that even back then — let’s assume this story is from two-and-a-half, three, or even four thousand years ago — such social distortions already existed? Or if we talk about the Treta Yuga, which is said to be millions of years ago, were these kinds of flaws present even then? Because Treta Yuga is said to have been an age of dharma — a righteous, virtuous society filled with noble qualities.

Yet here, it’s not a random case — like the single “washerman” example people sometimes mention — but rather, it’s been stated as a kind of principle: that in a daughter’s marriage, even if the groom’s family is of a lower status, the bride’s side inevitably faces humiliation or a sense of inferiority. So that itself raises a serious question.

Answer

Yes, exactly — that was the second question that Verma Ji asked: when a girl is married, the bride’s side must, in a way, bow before the groom’s side. So what you’ve pointed out is actually the repercussion — the consequence — of the earlier misunderstanding.

Once we made the first mistake — of taking “woman” to mean a female person instead of prakriti (nature) — then this second mistake naturally followed. When “woman” was no longer understood symbolically as prakriti, but literally as a woman, and “man” was taken as a male, not the soul, then the imbalance began.

That’s how this social distortion arose — because if you think, “a woman must follow even a wicked husband,” then automatically society creates the next evil: that the bride’s family becomes “lower,” and the groom’s family becomes “higher.” One wrong understanding gave birth to another.

So yes, what you’re seeing here is not the way society originally was; it’s the result of misinterpreting spiritual knowledge. Because people didn’t understand the symbolic meaning — they took the words literally — society began to imitate that literal picture. And its negative effects are still visible today.