We Sing of Radha’s Name, But Silence Women Who Refuse Marriage Today

“राधिकायै नमो नित्यं कृष्णायै च नमो नमः।

ययोः कृपानया वश्यो जगतामनयोः प्रभुः॥”

"Salutations to Radha and Krishna, whose love binds even the Lord of the universe under its spell."

The name of Radha is inseparable from Krishna. So much so that in temples, in bhajans, and in the very breath of devotees, the chant is never just Krishna but always Radha-Krishna. Yet, Radha was not Krishna’s wife. Her love transcended the boundaries of social contract, marriage rituals, and legal recognition. It was a devotion that became divine, immortalized in poetry, scripture, and living tradition.

But here lies the paradox: while society elevates Radha’s unmarried bond as the highest symbol of love and devotion, it often looks at single women today with suspicion, pity, or stigma. The question is not just cultural but deeply philosophical. If we can worship an unmarried woman’s love in temples, why do we judge those who live outside conventional roles in our own homes?

To understand this contradiction, let us look at the deeper dimensions of Radha’s place in tradition, the way marriage and womanhood were framed in Hindu thought, and how societal attitudes evolved into the stigmas we see today.

In the Bhakti movement, Radha’s relationship with Krishna was interpreted as the soul’s longing for union with the divine. Marriage, in this context, was irrelevant. Radha was the eternal devotee whose surrender symbolized a higher spiritual truth. Saints like Jayadeva in the Gita Govinda and poets like Surdas made Radha the embodiment of devotion.


By shifting her love from the personal to the cosmic, society sanctified what otherwise could have been seen as transgression. Yet this philosophical elevation did not extend to ordinary women, whose worth remained bound to marriage.

Hindu scriptures present marriage as one of the samskaras, a sacred rite of passage. But nowhere is it declared that every woman must marry to attain liberation. In fact, figures like Gargi and Maitreyi in the Upanishads were unmarried or independent thinkers, yet revered for their wisdom.

Over time, however, marriage became the defining marker of a woman’s respectability in society. While Radha was lifted beyond the human plane, real women were confined within rigid roles, their value measured by marital status.

Ancient India had instances of widows, unmarried women, and ascetics who were respected for their learning or spiritual discipline. With medieval invasions and the rise of more rigid social structures, women’s freedom shrank. Practices like child marriage, purdah, and control over female mobility deepened.

The unmarried woman came to be seen as “incomplete” or a threat to social order. This patriarchal framing erased the earlier acceptance of female autonomy, even though devotion to Radha continued unchallenged.

Radha became a symbol, not a precedent. Her love was not meant to be imitated but worshipped. Theologians argued that Radha’s relationship with Krishna was divine lila (play), outside the limits of human morality. This separation allowed society to keep Radha on a pedestal while discouraging real women from pursuing similar independence.

In other words, Radha was sacred because she was inaccessible. For ordinary women, the rules of marriage, chastity, and conformity remained absolute.

During colonial times, reform movements like those of Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar fought against child marriage and for widow remarriage. But the colonial lens often painted Indian women as oppressed, and the counter-response was to emphasize the sanctity of the Hindu wife. Nationalist rhetoric frequently cast womanhood in the image of Sita or Bharat Mata, reinforcing marriage as a duty.

This modern history tightened the stigma around single women even further. The paradox only grew: while Radha was sung in devotional songs, real unmarried women were expected to be invisible.

One reason for the stigma is practical. Historically, property and inheritance laws limited women’s economic independence. A married woman was seen as protected within her husband’s household. The single woman was often perceived as vulnerable or burdensome.

Radha, as a spiritual figure, did not have to navigate economics or survival in patriarchal systems. But single women in society became symbols of instability in a world built around male guardianship.

Even today, despite urbanization and education, single women face bias. Housing societies hesitate to rent to them, workplaces sometimes question their stability, and families worry about their future security. Culturally, the unmarried woman is still seen through suspicion: Why is she single? What went wrong?

Radha is praised for her freedom to love without marriage, yet real women are often denied that same freedom without judgment.

Hinduism has a wide spectrum of female archetypes: Sita for fidelity, Draupadi for resilience, Gargi for intellect, and Radha for devotion. Yet society tends to selectively emphasize those that reinforce control over women. Radha’s image is celebrated in temples but stripped of its radical challenge to social norms.


This selective memory allows tradition to look timeless while preserving structures that limit women in the present.

The paradox of Radha’s worship and the stigma against single women reveals more about society than scripture. Where the spiritual imagination is generous, the social order is restrictive. Where Radha becomes eternal, women today are made to feel incomplete without marriage.

Perhaps the lesson is this: if Radha’s unmarried love can be divine, then single women too deserve dignity without condition. The divine does not measure devotion by marital status. Why should society measure worth by it?

Until we reconcile this gap, Radha will remain a goddess in temples but a forgotten truth in homes. And maybe, the true devotion to Radha lies not in singing her name but in honoring the freedom of women who choose their own paths, with or without marriage.