Why Do Indian Women Pierce Their Nose?
Introduction
From the ancient times, women and accessory go hand in hand, a well jewelled woman is always considered as a beautiful woman. No matter how much we go round saying that , “ beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder “, our society always considered a well-jeweled woman as the most beautiful woman, the epics are an evidence, each queen was seen bejeweled and that was added as the pride of the ruler.
So a woman’s accessory was not only her own beauty standards but also the pride of the family as well. Also jewellery was designed with great sense of fashion and style also keeping in mind the benefits it can render to its user. So a lot goes in while desining a particular jewellery.
Woman and piercing
One such style statement from the ancient times was the nose ring. It was worn on the nostril , septum or the bridge of the nose. Nose ring is a tradition in our Indian culture. It is so believed that married woman were supposed to wear nose ring or get nose piercings for 2 reasons, firstly to symbolise that they are married and secondly , it was believed in ayurveda that nose ring piercing at a particular position will help in easing childbirth.
It is believed that if a woman has her left nostril pierced then it gives her health benefits as the left nostril leads to the nerves which are associated with the female reproductive system. Soo much for a child birth!
Our society always has this notion that their pride lies in the conduct of their women. How they dress up, how they walk, how they talk and things like that. Even the jewellery worn by them should be designed in such a way that it should relate to them being able to reproduce with ease. Such is the conduct of the society. Now it is on us to believe whether getting our nose pierced is for following traditions which has various wavelengths of yardsticks to measure the beauty of a woman only , or to wear it just for fashion. The ball is in our court now.
However, wearing a nose ring or getting nose piercings is not always a social conduct. It also has some scientific argument, ancient people believed that there exist a sixth sense which represents brain wave focus and it is said to be located just above the end of the nose. So the famous sixth sense of the women is said to be enhanced by piercing her nose, also it was that nose piercing connects to the romantic , sexual and various emotional feelings of a woman.
These various school of thoughts regarding to nose ring and nose piercings are itself evident that woman and her choice of wearing a particular jewellery has to be fashioned in such a way that her ultimate job , which is to give child birth is well protected and secured !
Not that nose piercings are a thing which holds a woman back, but the question here is why such social norms which abides almost every woman to get their nose pierced not by their will but to follow a certain tradition. Fashion is a thing which tends to liberate oneself , not to force it on people and then put various arguments to make yourself valid.
This tradition of getting your nose pierced compulsorily for every woman is most prevalent in the north then few states of the south as well. So this culture of making the woman of the society bejewelled in such a way that the science of her being able to reproduce gets eased out is another way of doing some positive discrimination.
There exists a number of popular beliefs around woman and nose ring piercing, some are scientific facts, some are purely beliefs. One such popular believe is that when a married woman without having a nose pierced exhales the air out of her nostrils, it is bad for her husband’s health, therefore , since ancient times it is recommended that a married woman should have their nose pierced as the exhaled air if comes through the obstacle of a metal does not affects the health of the husband.
This particular belief is however totally a superstition believe as there exists no scientific argument to support this school of thought. Yet again, we see a discrimination against woman as she is expected to follow a particular fashion trend so that her husband is at good health, but what about her own health, well that is not taken into consideration here!
The problem here lies is that , why woman is expected to follow a certain trend to satisfy a social construct, why is it so that she is expected to do a specific style of fashion only and not allowed to do as per her own wish.
One fun fact about woman and nose ring piercing in India is that , this particular fashion which is also a custom in our country is actually being copied by the people of the western culture or countries over there, they find it pretty intriguing to pierce their nose and thus, they do on their wish. This is something which shows a thin demarcation between the will to follow and the necessity to follow, this line of partition is to be located by us as its high time now.
Conclusion
We need to understand this that getting a nose ring piercing is not wrong , but getting it pierced because your tradition is to be maintained no matter how hard it hurts you, no matter how much you dislike , this is wrong. We need to understand this particular fact that women need their fashion freedom.
However, its not all dark and gloomy on this side of the earth, many woman and girls nowadays are not forced to get their nose pierced to follow traditions , but there exist still a percentage of woman and girls who are being forced to get their nose pierced so that this tradition of the culture is to be maintained.
We need to remember one thing , that culture and traditions are made by people like us, so if we start making such traditions which tends to harm our girls and woman or which abides them in the name of fashion , we need to stop making such norms valid. We need to stop then and there and introspect that is it even worth it.
At the end of the day, we need to realise that humans are above all such traditions. Moreover , fashion has its own beauty, nose rings are a all together different but beautiful accessory which adorns and enhances a woman’s beauty , so the choice to get their nose pierced and follow this trend should be totally based on the motive to follow a fashion trend and not to satisfy any superstition school of thought. As these school of thoughts are a shackle which holds our woman back, so its time we need to realise that fashion in its true motive and sense is beautiful.
Reference of the article:-
“Why Do Hindus Pierce Their Nose? [Google Questions Answered] | Ambaa Choate” https://www.patheos.com/blogs/whitehindu/2013/10/why-do-hindus-pierce-their-nose-google-questions-answered/
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Indian-women-wear-nose-studs/answer/Harshita-Ragupathi-1?ch=10&oid=45201491&share=0f29b5d9&srid=5cuv8&target_type=answer
“Significance Of Wearing Nose Rings In Indian Culture – Boldsky.com” https://www.boldsky.com/amphtml/yoga-spirituality/faith-mysticism/2013/why-indian-women-wear-nose-rings-036499.html