My domestic help is getting married at the end of this month. She's a young girl of 20 years, frail, a little sickly, but extremely hard-working and affectionate. She is marrying a boy chosen by her parents, the dates and the modalities of the event are being planned entirely at the convenience of the groom's family; her father is grateful for the fact that the prospective son-in-law has a job and a roof over his head, doesn't smoke or drink and doesn't expect him to pay a dowry. The girl either doesn't have a mind of her own (which we all know is most unlikely), or doesn't want to express herself openly. After her wedding, her future husband gets to decide whether she should work or stay at home. She will probably be expected to produce a healthy baby within a year or two (if they're the decent sort they'll only rejoice more heartily if it's a boy and not blame her if it isn't) and over the next several years, it will be her duty to run her husband's house, raise kids and look after his family. If the husband needs her to supplement his income, she'll have to do all this and go out to work for a living as well. If she does, while it will put a tremendous strain on her already indifferent health, it will at least give her a modicum of financial independence (provided she isn't expected to hand over her salary to her husband or his parents, or be accountable to him for how she spends it).
I belong to an educational, social and financial bracket slightly better than that of my domestic help. Yet, the circumstances of my life weren't very different from hers. And no, before anyone starts thinking this is a personal rant, let me clarify that I am merely quoting my story as an illustrative example. It's the same for millions of women in this country and dozens I myself know, except, I don't want to talk about other peoples' lives without their permission and can speak with any level of confidence and certainty only about my own experiences. Besides, as Virginia Woolf rightly said, "If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people."
I was 27 years old when I got married, gainfully employed (though media jobs didn't fetch the kind of fancy numbers they do today), independent and free-spirited. From the time I 'grew up' there were covert and overt signals all around me propelling me towards marriage. My mother, for no fault of hers but merely based on her own understanding of life, believed that it was important for me to settle down with a man and inevitably, once that happened, to be tied (almost) irrevocably to his destiny. My father believed so too, only he didn't say it in as many words, nor as often. Life, particularly in a society like ours, isn't easy for single women. It can get lonely and you may end up feeling incomplete without marriage and children. All valid arguments in their own right, and echoed consistently and repeatedly by family and well-wishers.
I was on the marriage market from the age of 23 with varying levels of activity depending on my resistance and pig-headedness. There were times when the process was abandoned because of my non-co-operation before slowly, but surely, the pressure would start building up. As already stated above, I am not blaming anyone for the situation, merely stating facts. On my part, while I kept reiterating that I would get married only on my terms, or not at all, I lacked the courage to be entirely dismissive of the process. Visions of a long, lonely, unfulfilled life loomed large on my imagination. Never did I pause to contemplate the possibility that things could turn out just as well otherwise. I could build a career, live alone and savour the company of family and friends, perhaps hitch a boyfriend at some point, adopt a baby if I so wanted one, and found my own happiness on my own terms.
I'd met a variety of men in the four years of match-making, and although those experiences were rich fodder for fiction (and may well be put to that use at some point), most of them were disappointing. I realised that even as there was much talk of the emancipation of men, there was little practical evidence of the same. The number of men I eventually corresponded with was about 40, and personally met at least half of them. There was one particular candidate who had lived away from home ever since he finished school, worked in the US for a few years and had done everything from adventure sports to visiting nudist camps. But he wanted a wife who was intelligent, attractive and would agree to live with his parents and look after them, since it was now his desire to settle down in India and be with his family. Fortunately, this man rejected me. He wasn't the only one. There were others who I met more than once and being my usual open self, bared my shortcomings and potentially deal-breaking traits in the first meeting itself. But it still took this other guy three rather expensive lunches (we split the tab, being the progressive sort) to realise that he found me unattractive and hence didn't wish to go ahead with the alliance. If I had any sense, I should have slapped his face before walking out. I just said a polite 'goodbye' and left.
By the time I met my husband, I was thoroughly disillusioned with the process. I met him with great hesitation and almost certain that this would be another rejection in the can, more likely from my end. Except, he accepted everything I said about myself at face value and showed no sign of disappointment or disapproval. He too wanted a wife who would live with his parents. But because he was inherently decent and willing to accept me as I was, I chose to overlook the long-term implications of this pre-condition, or then, I couldn't imagine what it would actually be like to live with someone else's family for a stretch of time. Over the years, I've often wondered, whether a woman who put such a caveat would ever find a husband willing to move in with her parents and integrate with the family. Unlikely. My husband was a product of his own upbringing and conditioning and ill-equipped to break away from it.
Moving out of one's home is, in itself, a ground-breaking event for any individual (man or woman). But walking into someone else's house and family is a different ball-game altogether. Often it is a function of economics -- young couples don't have the money to rent apartments and live separately and hence move in with the husband's family (it can never be the wife's, because a son-in-law who lives with his wife's parents is considered impotent in our society). At other times it's on a whim -- the son doesn't want to leave his parents (for various reasons) and our society gives him a license to do so. (This is perhaps unique to eastern cultures. I once watched a French comedy about parents who were anxious about the fact that their 28-year-old son refused to move out of their house and actually deviced schemes to throw him out and get him to live on his own!) The situation, in my now well-informed opinion, is entirely disadvantageous to women. Most husbands and parents undertake little or no efforts to make the new bride feel at home. Even the mothers, who must have undergone the same trauma themselves, behave no differently than their predecessors and expect the daughter-in-law to fit in as unobtrusively as possible, while the house continues to function exactly as it used to before she walked in. In such families (and there are lakhs of them in this country), the son is treated as a privileged commodity and funnily, his life continues almost uninterrupted even after a momentous event such as marriage. There is no reason for men to even attempt to change their outlook in a situation like this, which is wholly to their advantage.
Even in modern urban nuclear families, highly qualified and tremendously talented women routinely give up their careers for family and kids. They're discriminated against at the workplace because of weaknesses foisted on them by a faulty social structure, which largely absolves men of the responsibility of home-making and child-rearing. Women aren't unreliable at the workplace because they're inefficient. But because it is their primary responsibility to keep the home in order and raise their kids, while maintaining their jobs if they must, either for financial reasons or for their own satisfaction and personal growth. This isn't their choice. It is a function of conditioning and a social order which make women feel 'guilty' about fostering their own aspirations and independent of their husbands, children and families. They are born into the belief that home-making is basically their function, regardless of their professional success and individual dreams. My mother, for instance, made sure that my sister and I learnt to cook, clean and keep house, unmindful of whether we enjoyed these activities or not, and notwithstanding our educational achievements and ambitions. I don't know of any men (at least of my generation) who received similar life-skills as part of their upbringing. Instead, they are conditioned to believe that just as their mothers ran their homes and juggled jobs (I have seen my own mother do it and know just how difficult it is), their wives will continue in the same tradition without any fuss. Except, nothing stands still. Not even dogmatic social norms -- although popular culture does everything within its power to reinforce gender stereotypes and regressive values through cinema, television and advertising.
Bottomline is, women are changing faster than men. And rightly so. This change is to their benefit and necessary for their survival and growth. But if men don't try to catch up, they'll be left behind to the detriment not just of their own future, but that of the entire social order which will be thrown into imbalance. For, the more women think, reason and act at will, the lesser the chances they'll want to get into such lop-sided alliances. I know enough women who've steered clear of the marital game realising well in time that it couldn't possibly work to their advantage, for the numbers of emancipated men are shockingly small.
I am not an advocate of the institution of marriage. It's a faulty system at best and a collosal nuisance at worst. But in this great country of ours, it's looked upon with reverence (for reasons beyond my limited comprehension). Every time I attend a wedding, the thought that's foremost in my head is, "Does this woman know what she's getting into? And does she have the courage to negotiate her space and find her happiness while being married?" I wish my maid has a good life. I hope her husband is an understanding man who will love and respect her for the person she is. But more than that, I hope she has the sense to know her mind and live accordingly.
