Marriage - an unending bondage

                                                                                                                                                    

                                          

                                                       

                                                                                                              

When I stepped into the age of maturity, after having spent the dawn of my life, I have realized that although Life is the most precious gift given to us by God, leading a Life in bondage is but a sort of anathema. No reasonable man or woman in this world can ever negate the idea that Life without Freedom is not worth-living. However, in spite of the fact that Freedom has its limitations in every walk of our life and we have to come to terms with them at times, living in an unending bondage, in which there is no liberty of living your life in accordance with your own terms and sacrificing all your dreams and desires, you have to invest all your life into fulfilling to the expectations and requirements of someone else's life, is nothing less than living in a hell. When I was a kid, naturally ignorant of the idea of the enslavement denominated as "Marriage", I used to think that it was a divine bond of perpetual friendship; therefore I always had a childish whim of having such a bond with someone so that I could get to play with her all the time. No sooner had I entered my puberty than the idea of Marriage began to imply as a sheer bond of love to me. And as of now, after I began updating my calibre to judge every aspect of my life properly, as everyone else do in general at the completion of his/her adolescence, the idea of marriage have turned out to be a mere enforced-bond of men and women without love, understanding and above all respect. What disappoints me greatly in this context is that Women are, in most cases, made the scapegoat of this terrible provision enacted by our male-dominating misogynistic society. 

                                         

There are several inequalities existing in our unjust society which in some way or other give the powerful a superior stature and the powerless an inferior one and gender-inequality is perhaps the most primal and the most frequent phenomena among all. Repression of women was started from the beginning of human race and is still an ongoing affair; it was and is still evident in every division of our society, regardless of religion, caste and creed, ranging from the commonplace to the elite. "A woman should behave like a woman" or "a woman is not as strong and intelligent as a man" are terms, I think, every woman in our society grows up listening. As a boy I had obviously never experienced the problems of coming into this world as a female but I have been witnessing day by day the calamities of women at several stages of their life since I grew up. Some people might contend that women are nowadays much more empowered and privileged  than men and give a lot of instances of women who have proved themselves to be equal to men through their achievements. I also agree with them but the fact is that we have become heedlessly so much informative nowadays that we always want to prove someone's opinion wrong by our unexamined-information without properly judging his/her objective. It is by far an undeniable fact that the progress rate of women in every aspects of life is increasing little by little all around the country but if we impartially inspect our surroundings on the ground level, we can surely find that women are still subjected to thousands of injustice by men. Establishment alone cannot not be the criteria of recognizing that all women-rights in our society are entirely secure and duly delivered. We can learn that Fundamental Rights, Respect, Freedom, are not properly given to them in actuality provided that we ask any woman in our surroundings. 

Marriage plays a vital role in this case. It is to be noted that not all marriages are responsible for breaking women rights and excessive rise of inequality between men and women. There are two types of marriage in general : "True Marriage" and "False Marriage". False Marriages are those that are based on economics and superficial qualities like sex, appearance, good looks and youthful vivacity the likes of which we comprehensively notice around us. Esteem, good sense, understanding, mutual affection and love and above all mutual consent without any compulsion are the ingredients of a True Marriage. There are some reasons behind my designation of the latter as "False Marriage". I have considerably noticed that marriage, to most men, is mainly a way for satisfying their sexual desire, gaining a helping hand for their family and having some financial help from the girl's family or in some cases for maintaining family status. Now I know that some men could disagree with me but the truth is that most men generally choose a woman for marriage on the basis of the conditions mentioned above. Besides, intervention of family into pairing a couple is one of the most obvious reason of "Failed Marriages" (the subsequent form of  False Marriages). Because whenever families decide a marriage in our society, generally there are no place for a woman's own choices and wishes and in future she suffers the most. How can a person spend her whole life with someone she scarcely have known and desired to live with? A man, established or unemployed, can choose his bride according to his wishes and desires. On the contrary, a woman, if she is unemployed, is, in most cases, not allowed to choose his life partner because, in our society, a man's desire (whether they are physical or mental) is considered methodical but a woman's desires and wishes are illicit and deemed to be "venery". Apart from this, marriage is, in most case, settled by a mulct, a penalty of being a woman, called "dowry"; even though dowry is forgiven in some cases, there is always silent message to the girl's family that the girl's happiness in her in-laws partially relies on the degree of their munificence towards the boy's family. It is quite an irony that most men, who pompously proclaim themselves to be greater, wiser and stronger than women, in some way or other depend more on the bounty of their wives' families than their own capabilities. Some women may disagree with me but I think the reason of this is that either they belong to the large sect of "misogynistic women" existing in our society whose frame of mind is largely modelled upon that of men or  their decision of marriage is based on the superficial qualities mentioned above. There are also some other women who might differ from me; these women are those who have accustomed themselves to the inconveniences of a "forced-marriage" or a "male-decided" marriage as they could not find a way out and now the persons whom they have been living with for a long time have become an integral part of  their existence. These type of women, to me, are mere living-corpses; they are deprived of feelings, love, sentiments, respect and their existence merely depends on the lives of their husbands and children; they don't want to alter their way of life nor do they want others to change theirs. So it is better to exclude them from consideration.

It is, however, a misconception that all love-marriages ensure "successful marriage" in which women are duly treated with respect and their rights are secure through and through. Sometimes a love marriage can also be a "failed marriage" if proper judgement is missing in choosing one's soul mate. The marriage of true minds is the ultimate good in Love and the coming together of the true minds depends on the lovers' knowledge about themselves and each other. One must recognize his/her partner's intention and to do so, one has to have good principle and right judgement. To form a right judgement, one must be able to see through affection, deception and hypocrisy and must not be the victim of flattery and carried away by the opinions of the others. The ability to judge correctly is particularly important to everyone and it is upon this ability that their choice of a suitable soul-mate depends. Otherwise, love-marriage, based on superficial qualities, such as appearance, good looks, status, sex, youthful vivacity, turn into an unhappy marriage, for the inordinate passion between two unprincipled souls is bound to cool down at some point when all the infatuations take flight with the course of time and then their true characters and intentions come to the surface piercing through the veneer of attractions and dillusions. This kind of love-marriages are seen in our surroundings to a great extent and we indiscreetly blame Love for our failures. In such cases also, women become the victims; in the cases where women are unemployed and ,after marriage, have no specific place to go for, most men, when their intention is successful and when they come to know that their wives are compelled to stay with them, purport to use the women for their own good and turn them into their wooden-dummies. Women also permit them to do so in the name of love and marriage. It is, in my opinion, wrong to grant all the oppression and allow someone to violate our rights in the name of  love, because love does in no way suppress us, rather it always liberates us from all sorts of bondage; and to love someone is to dignify her, to care for her, not to oppress her. Moreover, it is commonly too risky for a woman who dares to marry someone of her own choice in our society, because for women in a male-dominated society "choice" is an alien word and is unconventional. In such cases, she is devoid of  her family support and becomes completely dependent on her husband. Even if she is employed and independent, she has to depend on him due to various 'social norms' (i.e. socials obstacles)  - an independent woman is not agreeably acceptable to our society and thereby mount of hardships are erected in her way of living so that she abandons herself to the will of this male-controlled society. And if marital discord unfortunately arises in her future life, as in every walk of life, the woman will always be blamed for everything and will have to tolerate the vengeance of her family as well as the repression of her in-laws all her life. On the other hand, the husband will be deemed to be innocent no matter how much guilty he is in actuality for the disharmony. As a matter of fact, families are more concerned about their social status and maintaining social norms than the emotions and happiness of their children, as far as the women are concerned. They can give all the liberties to their sons- their male heirs but their daughters are mere chained-princess who are exceedingly taken care of but are not entitled to equal freedom with men (or in some families they are useless-burden whose marriage is the only comfort-bringer to their families). Therefore, when a girl unchains herself against the consent of her family, she will be devoid of her family support; and if some predicaments appear in her future life, it will be seemingly regarded as a rightful duty of her family to make her regret for her liberating herself. The concept of family in our society differs from the actual definition of family; for women, here everything depends on some conditions- love, affection, respect, family support- all are quite conditional. 

Sex is an inherent component of our life; besides procreation, it is natural for every creature to satisfy their physical desire according to their needs. But as no creatures except human beings are endowed with conscience and the ability to evaluate everything, as in every aspect of life, a human must use his conscience properly in this context. In our society, for human beings, the right to content physical desire is only rendered to men and women are made the object of their satisfaction; and sex plays a pivotal role in a marriage.Women are regarded so much as a sexual object in man's mind that a man's consideration of a woman's honesty and virtues depends on her conservancy of chastity. Besides, it is universally accepted that to be a good wife, a married woman must fulfill the needs of her husband and his family because a woman's principal duty in this world is to serve her husband's libido, procreate children for the family and take care of the household chores. Thus men is given the unrestricted right to their wives and sexual oppression has become an inescapable matter of marriage life for women. We are always horrified by the unprecedented increase rate of rapes in India but we never take in consideration the fact that millions of married women are being subject to 'marital-rape' day by day in our surroundings. It is because most of the men as well as the misogynistic-women (the out-and-out sycophants of men) do harbor a notion that a married man is entitled to the sexual exploitation of his wife and we generally never bother to meddle about it leaving the matter all to the woman's fate. Further on, woman's right to her uterus is also annexed by man-- albeit the uterus belongs to the woman, all the pains and problems of pregnancy are to be suffered by her, she is not given the right to take the decision of having child. The decision is determined beforehand and is always imposed upon them by her husband and his family, even though they claim with utmost naivety that the decision is bilateral. It has become a normality that married-women must produce children for her new family (in other words, for helping her husband's family to secure its lineage); and if a woman cannot manage to appease the expectation of her husband and his family, she will constantly be blamed and humiliated along with her family. Thus an unuttered-compulsion vis-á-vis bearing children is always imposed upon the women when they get married. Having children is of course one of the most wonderful feelings in most of the women's life; most women immensely wish to experience maternity. But the decision should, in my opinion, entirely be theirs under no compulsion and contrariwise, women, unwilling or unable to have children, should be duly well-treated and respected. for their decision or inconvenience. 

Women are apparently homeless-- they have no specific home of their own all their life. A woman grows up in her parental home and after marriage is sent to her in-laws which, it is said, become her new home. But in reality, she becomes homeless after marriage; she usually begins to lose her right and control over her parental house which goes to the male heirs of the house and in her in-laws, she is never considered as their own-- she is a "mistress" of the house, but she is accepted as a lawful member of the house - she is in some way other considered as an outsider .On the other hand, she has to prove herself everyday in every aspect of life or else her family will be blamed- it seems like all their life is not life but a job. It is generally considered to be a woman's job to take care of everything of a household but at the end she has no right to claim her credit. Just because a man earns money for the family, women's hard-work and contributions to the family are underestimated. It is not different for the employed women: first of all most women are not easily allowed to work, and even if some of them somehow get the opportunity, they will be reminded always that their first and foremost duty is to take care of the household; husbands are like overlords, they cannot stoop their stature by contributing in their own household chores. Anyway, these women in fact do five times as much work as a working man and still they are undervalued in comparison with man. Given that family is a part of our society, we can find a mini-society in a family where, as in the major, discrimination is evident; the root of social discrimination, I think, lies in the familial discrimination between men and women- women, the lower class of this society actually work harder than men, the upper class of this society and yet they are suppressed to a lower rank than that of men; as women are the lower class, their opinions are always deemed to be inappropriate and are unheeded in determining a family decision; as men are the upper class, they possess arbitrary right to do domestic violence on women, the lower class. Marriage propels this inequality and injustice towards women and empowers men's exclusive control over this anarchic society. Our society constricts a woman's life in such a way that it is impossible for women to escape from this perpetual captivity. There are many laws in our Constitution that are enacted to secure women's right and security, but it is much difficult for a woman to approach to the Courts for her sufferings, for this male-centred society compels women to be dependent on men in every aspect of life. If a married-woman dares to raise her voice for her sufferings and sue against the oppressors, it is most likely that she will lose everything she possesses and there will be no place for her to take shelter nor will there be anyone to protect her. It is true that legal action can bring them relief from this sufferings but in reality not every woman can afford it. In an urban society, it can be perfectly possible but in a rural society where women are not highly educated and maximally employed, it is by far impossible. Some women, especially the mothers, are also responsible for letting the men continue this anarchy for so long. Mother is the first teacher of  a child; they have the power to change a system if they intend to do so. Hence, it should be their duty to indoctrinate good morality to their sons and daughters equally. But in truth they indoctrinate their daughters to come to terms with all the oppression caused by men and nonchalantly forget to teach their sons as to how to treat women. A mother can play a vital role in changing this anarchy but to do so, she has to be just and impartial-- before she protests against the repression of her daughter, she must ensure that her daughter-in-law is safe from any kind of oppression of her son. Side by side, they must ensure proper education of every woman in the house so that they need not to be financially and socially dependent on men in future. In this way, they can save their next generation from the coercion of Men. But the reality is, in fact, that most of the mothers are generally too much misogynistic and absolute flatterers of men. I purposely exclude the responsibility of the fathers in this case because there are very few fathers in our society who truly believe that their daughters bear equal capabilities with their sons and intend to take any serious attempt for women against male-dominated marriages. Above all, we should keep it in mind that most of them, more or less, indulge themselves in dominating women in their life. That is why marriage still remains a bondage for women.

I have observed and experienced everything I mentioned above in my life; and my heart aches and becomes full of indignation for male-species, each and every time I see a helpless woman silently suffering the repression and suppression of Men. However, my purpose here is not abase Ideal Marriages in which men and women have equal status; and its existence is perfectly possible. But the kind of male-dominated marriage I have discussed here is in abundance in our society. It is a wrong idea that since men are, in general, physically stronger than women and they earn money for the family, they are rightfully entitled to master over the women of their family; Physical strength does not determine anyone's superiority and I daresay a man can never survive against all the difficulties and pains a woman has to go through in her life. Besides, a woman can surely do every kind of works a man usually does and can earn money for her family as much as a man does, but the problem is that they are never given the opportunity to do so. We, men, are so much insecure of ourselves that we do not want to let them enter our realm of works lest they best us. That is why, a woman is not given the same advantages a man enjoys in every walk of his life. As a male, I myself have realised it in my life. Considering the hard-work a homemaker puts in taking care of the household, it will not be a hyperbole to say that if a married-woman is given as much vantages as a man gets in his marriage life, she can definitely earn more money than a man can do for his family. So on what grounds do we underrate women?

In fine, bear in mind too, that not every woman is suffering in her marriage life neither is every man a tyrant but they are very few in our society. Marriage commonly turns out to be an inescapable bondage to the majority of women in our surroundings, and we force them to suffer in this servitude all their life. Some women realize it and accept it passively; some hopelessly scream out for equity and then are throttled; and some other silently wipe off their tears and face the horror everyday-- they have nowhere to escape for and no one to apprise of their agony. This article is dedicated to them.

~Imran