There was a time when i was too young to do more than to see and note facts about the society we live in (here i would refer to upper middle class society as well). A society which is defined as people living together and are abide by the rules and regulations.
“Rules and regulations“, I agree, there should be to have a reasonably managed place to live but that should in consent with every section of society. With time I have realized, society has a narrow focus on the subject but they are more concerned with the literal formalities and accuracies. I have started feeling that society is full of arbitrary rules which are even not same for both the genders. When it comes to women ,society gets pedantic. I sometimes wonder, if society is made to command women!! Regarding this I am ambiguous.
Let me put my feelings clearly – A boy and a girl are married only when they are agreed mutually to get in a sacred union and equal partnership; A girl moves to her husband’s place because they want to shelter together to share the love for life and no other big reason of changing her place but then why society immediately expect from a newly wedded girl to change completely and get in the role of daughter-in-law. Her identity and freedom is taken over as soon as she is wedded. She is expected to dress as per the norms, to cover her head(does that really mean that one respects the other?), to follow pooja and fast exactly as said (does all this done without faith brings some harmony?), she is expected to celebrate the festival as they do, more over at many places she is expected to take permission to visit her parents place(A place where she has spent half of her life, a place where she was pampered the most). How self contradictory it is that from the very day we began our life we are taught that the one who is elder is suppose to be respected ;use aap (in hindi) for elders and tu or tum for younger ones but this societal rules works till a girl not married. Once married, she is expected to use aap and show respects to all the siblings of husband regardless of age…Does that mean that after marriage you being elder matters nothing and son-in-law who is younger than many is treated with prefix ‘ji’. There occurred an extremity when at places I observed daughter-in-law using ‘aap,bhaiya,didi’ to the husbands sibling’s son/daughter. I even realised that in many societies that daughter-in-law’s parents are expected to always call her in-laws on festivals, occasions regardless of age. After understanding all this, I am seriously ashamed of being a part of such a society where women still do not get equal respect and parents of a women are still not treated equally.
All this forced me to make a research to find out reason behind the facts in upper middle class society and sadly i came to know that no woman want to lose her freedom but yes they are doing happily because they feel that will make their parents happy as to follow these simple facts is been taught by their parents itself. I realised, its not just the society, society has so very affected the families and there within the parents that they feed the girls from start that they lately create a state of mind which is about caring a lot about formalities and always follow the rules at the expense of anything…but expense is too much for me to tolerate.
Parents of a girl child, I request you to don’t ever teach or preach your baby that later on sasural will be your only home, you are ‘paraya dhan’ and even after marriage don’t use sentences like ‘ab tu sasural wali ho gai’ as this way you will be making your baby dogmatic. Better say, you will later get two lovely homes (one extra from your brother 😉 ) and with that a loving caring and supporting partner who will help you do what you want to do so that a girl changed in woman can enjoy her freedom of thought throughout her life like she is use to at your place.
Women! you have to become vital. Don’t just inflexibly attach to the theory or practice without a regard to its practicality. Be nice, follow the sensible rules but don’t degrade yourself. Please don’t hide yourself to save yourself from public aggravation.
Be yourself! celebrate womanhood! Respect others!!! and let others respect you too for what you are and not for the way you have unwilling changed for them.
Let’s together create our home a domestic temple!!!
