In Pictures: The Water Wives of Maharashtra

For the men in Denganmal village in western India, the solution to their water problems was getting a ‘water wife’.

There are several norms and traditions that are practiced in certain parts of India, that are hard to believe.

In the parched village of Denganmal, in western India, there are no taps. The only drinking water comes from two wells at the foot of a nearby rocky hill, a spot so crowded that the sweltering walk and wait can take hours.

For many men in the hamlet, some 140 km from Mumbai, the solution was a “water wife”. They started the practice of getting married twice or thrice just to make sure their households have enough drinking water.

Becoming “water wives” allows the women in this village, often widows or single mothers, to regain respect in conservative rural India. When the water wife, who does not usually share the marital bed, becomes too old to continue, the husband sometimes marries a third and younger spouse to fetch water in metal pitchers or makeshift containers.