Understanding Sologamy - Married To Oneself

Sologamy is a relatively new term to most Indians, and it became popular when Gujarat’s 24-year-old Kshama Bindu became the first Indian to marry herself on June 8, 2022.

- Vipraja Rao

Though she had planned her wedding in a temple in her home city Vadodara, Bindu backed out after being severely criticised by BJP’s Sunita Shukla. Even the priest, who said he would solemnise her wedding, backed out.

The act leftnetizens in a state of frenzy, with many terming sologamy simply an act to gain instant popularity.

So, let’s try interpreting the term. Solo means self, and gamy means marriage, so sologamy is marriage to the self. The concept sounds bizarre because marriage is the socially and legally accepted union of two individuals.

Different societies and religions follow certain customs and rituals when a wedding occurs. But sologamy is devoid of these rituals and customs.

Moreover, sologamy does not have legal sanction anywhere in the world because the person is single.

People are getting married to the self for pronouncing their self-love and independence in front of society.

For Kshama, her big fat Indian wedding, complete with rituals like mehndi, Haldi, 7 pheras, sindoor, and mangalsutra, is a way of making herself ‘complete, beautiful and enough’.

In an interview, she said the Netflix series Anne, where a character says, “I want to be a bride but not a wife,” inspired her.

Many others have taken the plunge and married themselves in lavish ceremonies, some out of genuine interest, others because of their helplessness.

In 1993, Linda Baker, world’s first sologamist, married herself in an overwhelming ceremony with 75 guests. She said she wanted to turn the stigma of a sad spinster around to someone happy being with herself.