Marry, don’t tarry

Following the 2001 census report for the community, Parsiana requested Delhi-based demographer Ava Khullar to analyze the census findings.

The first installment, pertaining to the census findings, was carried in the January 2005 issue of Parsiana. This second installment gives a background to the demographic decline and the final section will deal with interfaith marriages, community at­titudes and examples from other communities that have dealt constructively with the issue of demography.

Earlier research

In 1978, I was asked to speak at the North Zone meeting of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI) in Delhi on the subject of Parsi demography. When I started my research, it came as a rude shock to discover how precariously we were placed. Way back in 1948, in his well researched book A community at the crossroads Sapur Desai, the long serving secre­tary of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), who had observed the community at close quarters because of the BPP’s interaction with the Parsis and their problems, had analyzed the trends of late marriages, non-marriage among a growing section and low fertili­ty, and had laid the groundwork for our understanding of the Parsi demographic problem. In the same year the renowned scholar and demographer, C. Chandra Sekhar, had analyzed Parsi demography in his article "Some Aspects of Parsi Demography” in the journal Human Biology, May 1948, and also pointed to the dangers facing the Parsis. Later studies by Dr Leela Visaria, a professional demographer went into this subject in depth in a series of arti­cles in the well known journal, The Economic and Political Week­ly, in 1974.

Their painstaking research brought forth revealing insights into the dynamics of population growth or decline, which, when applied to the Parsi case, showed the clear direction in which this population was heading.

Some of their findings which struck me as very relevant, related to:

the effect on a given population of the average age at marriage of its members;

the effect of a large percentage remaining unmarried;

the effect of the age composition in the community on the birth rate;

the effect of relative fertility differential between different economically placed groups.

Taking these in turn I would like to share their conclusions with you: I quote, "The earlier the age of marriage the greater is the chance of leaving numerous progeny and more generations within a given period (i.e. grandparents, parents, children and even grandchildren living at the same time). On the whole the race that marries young as a rule has a large number of generations alive at the same time. Two persons of the same age, one marrying age 22 and the other delaying and marrying 11 years later, at 33, can in course of time create a great diversity. In one century the descendants of the former would outnumber those of the latter by two and a half times, in two centuries by six times and in three centuries by 15 times.”

Viewed in this perspective, it seemed to me how alarming was the added consequence of the large number of those who remained single. Populations grow in geometrical progression: if we take two children per family as the norm, then one couple has two, those two get four and those four become eight and so on. So that aunt or uncle who remained single has deprived the community of eight members in two generations. If we take the average as three children per family then the loss would be 21 persons.

Also consider that if for a population to maintain a steady level requires 3.1 children per family to counter the loss by deaths (this assumes that all females get married), what would be the situation where around 30 percent of men and women do not get married at all? The burden of maintaining a stable growth would fall on those who do get married by having many more children to compensate for the loss. The requirement would go up to possibly five or six or more children per married couple which would be a utopian dream indeed!

Desai also explained the effect of age composition on the birth rate. Dividing the population into three age classes as child-quota, parent-quota and grandparent-quota, he explained that the burden of maintaining the grandparents as also the children fell on the parents. "These two handicaps deter adults from procreating or even marrying and hence the fall in the birth rate.” The practice then is to go for a small family and Desai points out that acceptance of a small family norm is enough to change the whole life of a community within a century, especially when the original numbers are so small as with the Parsis.

The findings about the relative fertility behavior between the economically less privileged as against affluent Parsis was very incisive. Desai pointed out that the differentials created by social, educational and economic environments brought out the tendency among the better off classes, or the ablest families to have small families. This feature is noticeable across most societies. One has only to visit some of the large posh homes in the elite residential areas of Malabar Hill, Peddar Road, Napean Sea Road, etc, to record how sparse is the per square foot popu­lation density in them. To quote: "If the present wheel of for­tune continues to turn in a manner that is detrimental to the maintenance of abler classes, we shall continue to witness a slow accretion of the lower classes in the lowest stratum, a diminu­tion of the medium classes at a slow pace and quick throwing out of the rich and higher middle classes who fail to leave any issue behind to continue the line. Parsi society today is revolving rapidly. The tangential, centripetal and centrifugal forces, released as it were in the process of revolution, are today encompassing the whole social structure. The childless rich are thrown out, the middle class is sagging and the poor are gravi­tating lower and lower. In its biological career the Parsi com­munity has arrived at a crossroad. Let it pause and think which way it is going to take.” He further pointed out, "If the Parsis have to make themselves felt socially and politically amongst other sister communities, as they did in the past, they must see that their main reproduction comes from among the abler groups.”

In other words the better-off Parsis — those who would be able to give the best life style, education, culture to their children who would then make their contribution to the progress and prosperity of the community — would produce less and less offspring, while the less privileged children with lesser oppor­tunities would outnumber them to the detriment of the community.

However the situation as envisaged by Desai, of the less abled producing more children — a scenario which would prevail in other communities where due to lesser time spent in education, earning levels are reached at younger ages and consequently marriages and families are started early — is belied in our case as non-marriage and late marriages are features that run across different economic groups. So we lose out even here.

We Parsis can be seen as the classic example of what happens when a group reaches a high educational and economic status, and is ready to forsake biological continuity of its race for a materially rich life style. It is a pointer to the future of other smaller communities, like the Kashmiri Brahmins or Saraswat Brahmins who are already showing signs of this happening.

Visaria’s findings showed that the higher ratio of females was not only among the aged but even in the younger marriageable age groups. This meant less males to go around at a time when fast modernization brought late marriages, and higher education of women meant a more selective choice of male part­ners. The effect of modernization and high education of women on delayed marriages is demonstrated by the following facts:

In 1881, 74 percent of females were married between the ages of 15 to 19. In 1931, the percentage dropped to 19 and in 1961, it was two. Similarly in 1881 only one woman in the 43-49 age bracket was single. In 1931, the figure increased to 10 and in 1961 to 18.

In around 80 years there is a drop from 74 percent of fe­males marrying in the earliest reproductive age to two percent indicating the late age of marriage which has become a pattern within the community. Conversely, the unmarrieds have gone up from one percent to 18 percent by 1961.

My interest in this aspect of the community’s demographic downslide grew from then onwards and slowly from the late 1970s a growing number of concerned leaders and lay Parsis also began to be seized of this growing proportion.

To be concluded

A trustee of the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, Ava Khullar is a social scientist, who was for 17 years associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), a research organization in Delhi. Since 1978 she has been studying the demographic trends in the community and the problems facing the Zoroastrian population. She also started an embroidery business in the name of Sonava.