Bidai

The Emotional Turn

Bidai or bridal departure is a very important occasion in Hindu marriage custom. It is also considered as very poignant and heartrending. It is the moment or instance, when the bride departs from her paternal home towards the place of her in-laws. There is a lot of uncertainty in the mind of the bride, owing to the fact that she has to spend the rest of her life among complete strangers. This occasion overwhelms everyone present at the place and thus tears flow from the eyes. Even the bridegroom and his party are overwhelmed at the occasion. Before the departure takes place, the brother of the bride wipes the feet of her sister, so that she leaves some degree of luck and goodness at her father’s place. Sometimes, some members from the bride’s family also accompany the bride, to her in-laws place.

During the Vedic Period, the following mantra was chanted on the occasion of Bidai, “O learned persons, women embrace to attain pleasure only those men who take all the trouble to ‘reform’ the life of their wives, inspiring them the spirit of participating in the yajna, obey the great sacred laws of the household life and strengthen it for the continuity of the race of the father and mother, accept this Ashram of Grihasta”.

Bidai in Ram Charit Manas

The Ram Charit Manas also describes the occasion as follows:

“When the queens heard that the bridegroom’s party was about to start, they all felt miserable as fish out of water. Again and again they took Sita in their lap, blessed and exhorted her thus:

‘May you be ever beloved of your Lord, and May you live long with him, this is our blessing. Serve the parents of your husband and other elders and do the bidding of your Lord according to his pleasure. In their excess of love Sita’s clever companions too taught her the duties of a housewife in soft accents. The queens politely advised all the other princesses too and clasped them to their bosom again and again; and as the mothers embraced their daughters, time and again, they exclaimed: ‘Why did Brahma ever create a woman?”.