Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan’s wedding is considered to be one of the most iconic marriages in Bollywood. The couple tied the knot in June 1973; however, the path to their union was filled with resistance, especially by Jaya Bachchan’s father, who was against the marriage and even told Big B’s father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, that his family was ‘ruined’ after the wedding.
Was Jaya Bachchan’s father against her marriage to Amitabh Bachchan?
In his autobiography, In the Afternoon of Time, Harivansh Rai Bachchan recalled the tensions that surrounded his son Amitabh Bachchan’s wedding to Jaya Bachchan (then Bhaduri). “Before we left, I embraced the father of my new daughter-in-law and congratulated him on getting a son-in-law like Amit, expecting him to say the same in respect of Jaya. But he said, ‘My family is utterly ruined’,” he wrote.
Jaya Bachchan reveals why her father was against her marriage to Amitabh Bachchan
The stark reaction was explained by Jaya Bachchan on the podcast What The Hell Navya, where she revealed how Amitabh Bachchan’s father had strict prerequisites about their relationship, even refusing them to go on a trip together before marriage.
‘He called me and said, ‘My parents are saying you can’t go for a holiday with Jaya. If you want to go for a holiday with her, you marry her.’ We were planning to get married in October, but we preponed it to June,” Jaya Bachchan said.
Jaya Bachchan shared that the main reason why her father disapproved of her marriage was because of his belief that matrimony should not be the end goal for his daughters. “I have not brought you into this world to just educate yourself, get married, settle down, and have children. I want you all to do something in life,” Jaya Bachchan quoted her father as saying.