It's maddeningly frustrating to see how to most people here in India, the primary objective of getting their son married is to have someone look after their household chores - which include cooking, cleaning and basically just attending to whatever random chores have to be done. The reason coming in a close second is procreation - the need for children to carry forward the 'family name'. So close!
I fail to understand why the family name is significant anyway. If you die, you die. It doesn't matter any more whose name is what and besides, what if your family's offspring change their name to metallica (or anything!!).
So coming back to the original line of thought - this train of thought started because the pati (the husband, if you will) and I were watching Kaun Banega Crorepati with all the Bachchan glory. Coincidentally, all contestants on KBC happen to come bundled with a sob back-story and also useless poetry things to bore people in between questions.
The contestant dude tonight also had a sob story. His sob story was about having to marry at a really early age due to unfortunate circumstances. So what were these unfortunate circumstances? Well he said that his mom died and an aunt came over to live for a bit and take care of the household/chores - but then she had to go back to her original home and they would need someone to take care of theirs.
One would think he'd get a maid. But nope, he's so much more creative than that. He gets married, and brings home a wife to do all the housework - and for free at that. So he completely undermined both his mother and wife in one sentence. He felt no shame or hesitation in explaining his reason for marriage - his manner was disturbingly matter-of-fact. And why not? This is probably one of the biggest reasons for marriage in our country.
How convenient.
We can shout slogans about women's liberation and gender equality - but these clichéd role stereotypes are just so deeply rooted and ingrained in the heads of our country-folk, that this liberation and equality thing appears to be just eyewash. It's not just men labelling women as the "housewives", it's the men's mothers and aunts and sisters as well - yep, the women. So the women collectively are successfully keeping each other down below.
Cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, other random chores - will continue to be labelled as women's domain for as long as marriages happen for the "household". Also, despite the fact that these marriages are primarily happening because men need the women to take care of their business - they still think they're doing a favour to her entire khandaan by marrying her - and dowry remains a norm. Oh and that also reminds me of the mind-numbingly regressive TV soaps that continue to remain the rage - mostly among womenfolk.
Yes, it's true that many more people educate their daughters now, but unfortunately so many of them do so only to ensure a good "match" for their marriage.
Argh! So much is so wrong! I can continue this rant for eons, but I'll feel like a stuck record. You get the idea.
I hope and wish for change. I really do.
I hope women choose a brighter future - for themselves and their kind.
I hope that some day a large part of the population is able to look at marriage as a union of two people who choose to spend their lives together - for love.
Love and laughter,
Nidhi
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