Marriages and uncertainties

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Marriages and uncertainties

by

Ankita Majumder (Sem I, 2023)

A woman, when she gets married to a man, her dreams are usually not very big. They are mostly minimal to herself. A woman, when she comes to her husband’s house leaving her life behind, has only one wish in her mind and that is to find her husband, her partner for eternity. She wants her husband to be a supporting person, who would believe in her, respect her and love her.

What if her dreams get crashed down? What if her husband isn’t the person she thought he was. What if he turns out to be a ‘monster’ in the disguise of a gentleman.

Her father cherished and cared for her like a princess and she thought that after marriage her husband would treat her like a queen. Is it her mistake to think like that? If the marriage doesn’t work out like it was expected, there is a possibility that she would be treated like a slave. Her wishes wouldn’t matter to him, her opinions wouldn’t matter to him, her dreams wouldn’t matter to him.

Now comes the extended family part. What if her mother in law isn’t supporting her for wearing a night gown in the house the thing in which she is most comfortable during her sleep? When the newly wedded daughter-in-law wanted to work she expected her in-laws would be supportive like her natal family, but in most likehood they wouldn’t support her. She would be crushed, and heartbroken. In alien place, she wouldn’t be able to protest, knowing well that she wouldn’t be supported there.  

 

The comes the question of pregnancy and having a baby. Little of this life changing decision remains in her hand. When she is pregnant she expects that maybe her husband would love the child. May be she wanted a girl and in a patriarchal society, when a girl is born, it doesn’t really bring good news to the family. In a hypothetical scenario, the husband with utter disappointment might not even look at the newborn daughter, because it is a girl.

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We know that physical abuse means domestic violence but what we don’t talk much about is verbal and emotional and mental abuse which goes on unnoticed in an arranged marriage system which our society is too much fond of.  

After coming to his house, the wife never gets the respect and love she deserves from the family and from her husband. For the whole world maybe there is a pretention. There is a pretention that he loved her to the moon and back but within the four walls we call home he never hesitated to disrespect her in every possible ways.

She loved her husband’s parents, the family as her own but what did she get in return from him and his family? Disrespect! The husband is supposed to believe in his wife, support his wife, when the whole world stands against her, he should be standing beside her in against odds but what if that husband does the opposite?

And whose fault is it?

Was it her fault that she dreamt of a beautiful life after marriage?

Was is her family' fault as they couldn't check the groom's background?

Was it his mother’s fault who unintentionally or “intentionally” decided to ruin a innocent woman’s life?

Whose fault was it for which she is paying the price now?

Or is it a faulty system where one is unable to understand the other person with whom she is supposedly tied for the rest of her life?



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