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Be the change you wish to see…

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This entry was posted on 4/21/2006 1:13 PM and is filed under Women.

BY GITA MAHESHWARAN,

Maya,
Read your view points with interest. http://blogs.nripulse.com/2006/04/13/indianmarriage.aspx

Here are my ramblings on this topic. 
 
I do agree with your view points on Indian marriages conceptually but not in its entirety. Love is something that should be cherished and nurtured over the years with good amount of effort from both the partners. I agree the spontaneity can be lost in arranged marriages and in love marriages.  Lot of Indian marriages do not work or fail within the four walls of a house, marriage can become a loveless prison not because the individuals are not compatible but because the partners refused to acknowledge each other's presence from the very beginning.  In love marriages there are additional factors which can make the equation more complex. The traditions and customs so very integral to a sub sect, religion, region that you defied or didn’t care less   becomes an unsolvable variable in a multi variable equation. Individuals become defensive about his/her religion, caste, region, parents etc. In either case and in most marriages both the husband and wife are at fault. The wife does not trust her husband's abilities to handle the household chores or children. The husband refuses to grow up or cut his umbilical chord. The husband prefers to share the work stories with his buddies and the wife finds her happiness in the company of her siblings. In US due to lack of siblings and family, we end up getting together with friends on the weekends, spending more time with others than with our spouses. A time we can effectively use to share each other's interests and build the special relationship.

Somewhere between changing diapers and feeding the ever hungry baby, the woman forgets she is a wife and not just a mother. We Indian women just can't let go of our baby, we pamper them, micro manage them  so much that they demand our time and in between we forget our marriage. We are partly responsible for making our hubbies incapable.

We get pregnant and we run to our mothers quite forgetting the man who impregnated us. The distance between husband and wife starts soon after. We decided to go for a  vacation to Ellora caves, Maharashtra during my late pregnancy.  The society opposed, my in laws send a petition to my parents about my rebellious streak.  But we went, had fun and even spend few days at my uncle-in law’s house in Bombay.  We would sneak out with our little daughter barely 6 months for a late night show armed with milk bottles, blankie. She slept unaware of the surroundings and we enjoyed the Mohanlal movies. I had no inhibition of leaving my child at day care (In 91 & in Kerala) , with my in-laws or a friend to enjoy time with each other or just enjoy a book. Her bout of chicken pox on her first birthday, her hex with asthma was attributed to my irresponsible attitude. My abilities as a mother were questioned. 

She is 15 now and has no memories of chicken pox but we have good memories of our time together and she has learned to enjoy some of our passions .Here in US, I am sure many of us can afford to hire a baby sitter to enjoy a night out with our spouse. But do we do it?  The wives rarely enjoy the husband’s leisure pursuit and other way too. I know we prefer the house to be spick and span, endlessly clean and cook, crib at the way he boils water or clean the bathroom than cuddle and enjoy a  sitcom or even sleep with the head in his lap while he enjoys a tennis match  or a Clint Eastwood movie. We prefer to fret on our husband’s short comings with our girlfriends rather than confronting them with him or working on it. We gripe about our in laws from day one. Sometimes we should learn to love them in spite of their million inadequacies.  Our brothers and sisters are not faultless either. I have family relations where the husband is an art enthusiast and a wife is into gardening or an avid book reader. Each spouse tends to share his or her interests with others rather than with each other. They never share interests with each other. Why complain about having no common ground when they could build one. Why blame the mother in law if you aren’t allowed to spend time with your books. The couple could have educated each other, he would have read a book occasionally and she could have enjoyed a concert or two. My husband will read every book printed in Malayalam and me brought up outside Kerala had no interest in anything remotely related to Malayalam, would prefer a pani pudi chat with Rafi’s old melodies. But when the poems were dissected, interpretations analyzed , parallelism drawn descending into a solemn mood in my  boisterous in laws’ house, I yearned to join the party. I cultivated a taste to like the Kumaran Asan,  Ayyapa Panicker , Madhusoodhanan Nair, VKN and he learned to enjoy the distinct Urdu and Punjabi accent in Rafi songs, the nuances of Balraj Sahni's acting. Why blame community? Defy it and take things in your hand. Why blame men when we can’t take the initiative. I left my two year old child with my husband to work in Germany. By Indian standards I should have left her with my parents or not gone at all. I was burned on the Altar. But who cares?

We get married, have one or two babies, live their life for two decades, enjoy the seclusion with our sisters and then turn back and weep that there is no romance in our life. Why did we forget to hold the hands or rub the leg (it has to be under the table for Indians), how did we forget to dress for each other (not for work or party), exchange dirty glances or a sly smile in the midst of a big gathering, or in today’s world, text (an immoral) message on the cell phone? Why don’t we flirt with each other? What I mean to say is both the partners are equally responsible for the rocky marriages in joint and nuclear families, in small towns and metro cities and here even in US, far away from the prying eyes of the in laws.
 
Maya, I am totally for women’s financial independence, career consciousness, and very much against dowry, female infanticide, wife abusers, alcoholic men and all the issues that plague the Indian women. We need to put effort into changing the rural, uneducated India and be the savior for the helpless women. But we constitute the educated, middle class layer; we should attempt to take things into one’s own hands and reform. Why blame the society..we are the society.

We have to be equal partners, demand friendship and coax equality from the husbands and in laws but not forget our role in all facets of his life/ the life together/ life with his parents, siblings. I don’t agree in overcompensating or demeaning our part by cleaning, cooking or dancing to the tunes of society. Yes, when he comes home on Thursday night there will be a hot Kerala meal prepared in his mother’s style waiting for him. But when I come home on Friday I need chai and samosa (the store bought one is fine) too. The chai was insipid during the early days but with years it is as good as mine.
 
Be the change you wish to see…Gandhi

 

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    • 4/25/2006 2:49 PM Ganga Perumparambil wrote:
      Yes, the first step to freedom is asking for it. You will get it sometimes, if not you will have to fight for it. When partners are sensible and understanding, making adjustments and reaching compromises are easier. For women who are sent to an abusive marriage relationship, most of the time the only remedy would be coming out of it. Even financially independent women are not doing it, because our society doesn’t give them the moral support. What happens when a woman who long for freedom and free spirit is destined to live with a man who firmly believes woman is created with his left side bone? OK, he will enjoy everything she does for him, as long as she doesn’t cross the limit. There are situations where the magic of sharing interests and caring for your partner don’t work. In those situations the wife should be able to come out of the relationship without any feeling of guilt or fear of being singled out. She should have the confidence to live single or to choose another partner. Men do that easily everywhere. Women enjoy freedom, equal rights, and respect in a society only when she is free to be free.

      More and more girls in India are getting educated, more and more are becoming self supportive. Still why are Indian marriages becoming more and more like a business even in educated middle class families? Why is female infanticide still there?

      The number one reason is the dowry system. When parents look at girls as burden that has to be relieved from their shoulders, how do daughters get the nurturing environment and encouragement to grow into confident, proud adults who can shape their lives? I don’t believe there is anything special about love marriages compared to arranged marriages, in making a marriage successful. But one way to abolish the dowry system in a society is to encourage men and women to find their own partners. Isn’t it the most natural way too? I heard stories of ‘Swayamvaram’ where a girl chooses the best one from the aspiring grooms to be (good old times!) Just wondering when and why we started “arranging” marriages and reached the stage where it has nothing to do with love and companionship, but how much gold and money a girl’s parents can accumulate to buy her a husband. Even the parents, who were forced to sell everything they own to give dowry for their daughter, will bargain in cold blood to get the last penny out of their son’s in-laws. As long as the string of arranging marriage rests in parents’ hands, they will conduct the puppet marriage and fix the deal from behind the curtain. When girls get education, become financially independent, start finding their partners, and getting married for love, the dowry system will end in India. We ended Sati, the deaths (including murder, suicide, and infanticide) occurring because of dowry will end too.
      Reply to this
    • 4/26/2006 7:09 AM Narender Reddy wrote:
      Gita: Your comments are the most balanced and practical I read on this blog.

      Narender
      Reply to this
    • 4/26/2006 12:30 PM Dr.Edgerrs wrote:
      Ms.Perumparambil, In your rebuttal you are talking about exceptions when the blogger, Ms. Mahasawaran clearly said she is against the injustice and hopes to be the saviour for such victims. Issue is not Love Marriage Vs Arranged marriage. The issue is how much effort each partner puts. I dated a wonderful Indian lady for 6 yrs before we got married. After 5 years our marriage ended in a divorce. The reason being coming from 2 cultures, we weren't expecting the same things out of marriage. As Mr.Reddy points out our family of two included her parents, siblings etc. Taking 2 months vacation with her family in India was a norm unheard in my world. My parents were forbidden to set foot in our house. Over emphasis was laid on the Hindu festivals, traditions belonging to her family. The story continued until we decided to part ways. Why victimize your husband and other Indian men for a dowry death in a village in another country? A middle and moderate approach would help, not wife bashing or men alias husband bashing.
      Reply to this
      1. 4/26/2006 3:17 PM Ganga Perumparambil wrote:
        I was mainly addressing the problems of Indian women discussed in Maya Nair’s original blog. Since Ms. Mahaswaran referred that in her mail, I took she was suggesting solutions to those problems. I was not discussing Love Marriages vs Arranged Marriages, and definitely not how to make a marriage successful, Dr. Edgerrs!!
        Reply to this
    • 4/26/2006 8:11 PM Maya Nair wrote:
      Most of us think that our tiny little world is a microcosm of how
      the rest of the world works.. The reality is that nothing could
      be far from the truth. Some of us may be fortunate to be born in
      families where women are empowered. The reality is that the majority
      of women in India, especially in the towns and villages, are not.

      How does India deal with widows? Divorcees? Child marriages?
      Abandonment of wives? Domestic Abuse? Can these women trust even the
      policemen who are supposed to protect us? These are all products of
      so called arranged marriages. People who fall in love and marry have
      the guts to make it work or get out.They have taken the responsibility
      for their lives. That is the first step.

      Our life should make us think, empathize and understand the world
      and why a society behaves in a certain way. Arranged marriages
      have been the norm in Indian society for centuries. Parents decide
      on the marriage partners that serves their interests, mainly reputation,
      caste and financial status and sometimes "horror-scopes". This is a
      vicious cycle that undermines the values of adults who have the capability
      to think for themselves.

      Most of the failed marriages I have seen are where people are stuck
      in marriages that were not their choice, with partners who are not
      compatible in age, interests or philosophy of life. This does not mean
      that "Love marriages" do not have problems, but at least the people
      learn from it, improve it or move on.

      Arranged marriages weaken the individual. Responsibility for one's
      actions strengthens an individual.

      To deny your child the magic of falling in love, because the object of
      their affection happens to be the wrong caste, religion or status is
      nothing but ignorance and the sooner Indian society realizes that,
      the better for everyone.
      Reply to this
    • 4/28/2006 9:05 AM Sandhya Kishore wrote:
      So is love marriage a solution to all the problems? Why do we see spousal abuse, sexual assault, child molesters, date rapes, even polygamy here in US where there are no arranged marriages? The resolution is to educate the female child so that she makes a contentious choice when deciding on her life partner whether it is the one decided by her parents or a self chosen one.
      Instead of raising fingers at each other, make a positive contribution to these causes.
      Reply to this
      1. 5/4/2006 3:35 PM Maya wrote:
        And what positive contribution have done without any publicity attached to it?

        Maya
        Reply to this
    • 8/12/2008 6:50 AM marriage counselors wrote:
      In this case I should be open minded and understand the Indian marriage principles but I think you are asking me too much, I cannot understand how two strangers be put together by their parents can form a family and build a healthy relationship, this is too drastic.
      Reply to this
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