My mind has long been captured by the thought that it’s the woman, most of the times, who either by faith or by oblivion gives the control of her life in the hands of the man she trusts the most.
In a normal middle class set up, women till date do not have much say in matters of finance. Though there could be exceptions in some cases, the monetary decisions are made by the mukhiya (male head) in the house. The woman could be the Ba, Bahu or Baby (The wife of the patriarch, the daughter-in-law or the girl child) in the family. They are so accustomed to do what is told to them since their growing years that they actually become used to living such a life. ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ as we say!
Most of the women in India live a life designed by the men in their life…their father at the growing stage, then their husband and finally their son (s). Some of them seem to live like this without even being aware of this bonded labour.
My mother, who hails from a small village in Uttarakhand, is a college drop out. Her father decided not to send her to college, which was located in the city, a good enough reason for him to deny her admissions. Her mother didn’t have a say in this… Then a family tragedy and my mother spent more than a year at home. Two years later when she managed to get the forms on her own and take admissions…she must have known that she will have to give in to the wishes of her father…Same year she got married.
Despite initial support by my father to have her complete her Bachelors degree…She didn’t relent. I am not sure if her in-laws knew of this. She was still adjusting to the city life and was more than scared to do so. My grandfather, who has been a teacher himself, didn’t interact much with the women in the family, for reasons best known to him.
My mother is 50 now and is an avid follower of socio-political news. In fact, it was she who inculcated the interest for journalism in me…Two years back, when I filled in for a Masters at IGNOU, I tried to convince her for a BA degree in Political Science but she said it was too late... She couldn’t memorise what she read now. Though she never went to college, she keeps herself engaged watching the latest news breaks on television…
But I really wish, she should have been given a chance to do her college given the fact that my uncle, her elder brother, has served as a District Judge at many cities of Bihar including Patna.
I wonder why none of her sisters ever wanted to study further. Not for the sake of doing a job but just for attaining liberation…Liberation of the mind…Well, may be they were never told education was for all…
Most of the women never attempt to cross the virtual line of dos and don’ts prescribed by their fathers…I gather this from what I have seen in most of the Indian families…Since we have a woman President of India, a woman national party President, a woman Speaker and also a woman Leader of Opposition in the upper house of Parliament, we may have the feeling that times are changing…They surely are… but if we look deeper we realize that at the grass root level, there is still a man who is remote controlling the woman at the political front.
A year ago, I met a man from Rajasthan working in the Finance Ministry in Delhi. He got married at 13 with a girl even younger…It wasn’t very difficult to understand that he had completed his studies, while his wife had to drop out from school. But what he told next was an eye-opener…He had got his wife complete her studies privately for saving himself from the embarrassment that he may have to face in social gatherings. Had he really cared about educating her…he would not have restricted her to study only till class 12th.
This is not a lone case…Families in two and three tier cities are no different…Engineering and Civil Services for boys and B.Ed or NTT for girls seems to be the obvious choice for many parents even today. Girls who cross the Laxman Rekha as defined by their parents have to make many efforts to convince them of their caliber.
Some may agree and some may not…After all, we think what we see…When I decided to join the Media world, I got maximum support from my mother, while my father chose to be indifferent. He has never had a defining influence in my life in making choices, deciding the right and the wrong. He neither objected to my ways nor ever supported. He just kept silent…so silent that we have actually started talking after a gap of nine years. What I have inferred is that my independent streak cost me my relationship with my father.
Does that mean that harmony and peace can exist in families where there is lack of ‘democracy’ and no ‘gender equality’? This may seem debatable to many but I would like to share an incident to make my point clear.
A close friend of my childhood days always told me that her father was “her best friend” and that she was the apple of his eyes. She wasn’t very close to her mother instead. But as she grew up and entered the so called “marriageable” age, her father wanted her to tie the knot as early as possible. All her cousins got married immediately after their school or maximum by their graduation. She is the only girl in her family who did a PG Diploma in Business Management. And also the only who went for an NTT course after a PGDBM!!!
Again, the age old problem of not sending young girls to the city everyday. When the girl tried to buy time to prepare herself for marriage, her father almost stopped talking to her, even as she saw the attitude of her brothers (both of them younger to her) gradually changing towards her…
Things became normal when she relented. She is now married and teaches at a school nearby.
Another friend who had a great relationship with everyone in the family, today is a lonely soul among the same people she’s grown up with. This is the cost she had to pay to be in love with a boy of another caste. Two men’s egos screwed up her whole life. Her father and her lover... In all her growing up years she had been taking tuitions and teaching kids to support her family with an extra income… Now when the time came for her to decide things for herself… Her family especially her father didn’t give in… The mothers of the girl and the boy had given their nod if only it was enough… But it was the father who decided for her MBA daughter that all she had been thinking and doing was wrong and getting married to her lover would only mean that she may never enter her house again…After several days of contemplation, she decided of never meeting or talking to the same guy. But this decision of hers wasn’t acceptable to the boy. Being unsatisfied of her answer, he called her to a temple nearby and thought he would change her mind. After assuring her that they were meeting for the last time, she sat inside the boy’s car. After a while, as the boy felt that he was unable to change her decision, he drove his car as fast as he could and almost hijacked her to her sister’s place. Leaving her there, he went ahead for a job interview. The girl was totally in dismay at her lover’s shameful act. She didn’t have any way to contact (after her father had taken away her mobile phone) anyone. Half the day passed and her parents were tired calling at the boy’s number, which he had put on silent because of his interview.
Later in the day, when the girl’s brother spoke to the boy, the girl was brought home robbed of her dignity. As the guy stepped out his car with the girl, he saw what could put any lover to shame.
The girl’s father slapped her in front of everyone, including the guy, his sister and brother-in-law and also the girl’s younger brother. That was the last day they saw each other…
This was a real incident which made me feel that it takes more than just education and money to be self sufficient. Since we see women going forward in all spheres today we tend to forget that we still are living in a male-dominated society... where it's always the man who is making the decisions as to whether or not his wife or daughter will continue to work... whether or not they should go for higher studies... what is good or better for them, and so on...
What begins as a feeling of caring and protection gradually takes shape of dictatorship where it's the man who's making all the rules and what remains for the rest is to follow without raising a voice... sometimes knowingly and sometimes unaware....
But I believe that the values we get from our parents make us the way we are and the values the society gives us make us better parents. And it’s the values we inculcate that shape the society. In short, the society can change only when we decide to change. Men have to give space to their better halves to have an equal say in making decisions… for a better society. What is good or bad for a man is as good or as bad for a woman. And this has to be determined by the individual irrespective of his or her sex. After all, men of quality are not scared of equality.
