MARRY HIM, THEN MARRY ME: NIKAH HALALA AND MALAYALAM MOVIES

Patriarchy tries to perpetuate inequality undergone by women from time to time and religion always lends a hand to it in accomplishing its intention. Sacred stances function as patriarchal tenets that become instrumental in the female subordination. Patriarchy reshapes and reinterprets religion which favors its ascendancy. Male dominated society uses religion as a tool to control and bully the women. The paper tries to analyze the representation in Malayalam movies of a practice called nikah halala according to which a couple who underwent a divorce cannot remarry unless the woman marries another man truthfully, and then her second husband dies or divorce her. But like the laws regarding triple talaq, polygamy, women inheritance etc have been misinterpreted; the teachings on nikah halala too had been distorted to safeguard the vested interests of male section of society. The movies Kasavuthattom, Alif, Kilichundan Mampazham, Mosayile Kuthirameenukal and Ghoshayathra have depicted this custom in detail, though Muslim lots are not much familiar with this system in their ordinary living.