Dear Indian Husbands
of Today,
This is not the 1950’s. Unlike my grandmothers and those
before her, I chose to marry you and
was not forced into a lifelong relationship with you.
I am just as and maybe more educated than you are. I chose
to put that on a backseat and be dependent enough on you to suit your ego. I
chose to make the house we live in a home and cook for you and keep you well.
By doing all this, I may have forgotten who I really am. You
want a woman who is smart and beautiful AND who listens to everything you have
to say.
Tell me, how often have you actually paid attention to the
things I want to say or the wishes I have? Yes, maybe you do sometimes. But do
you allow me to pursue what I want without making me feel guilty about it? Do
you allow me to live my life the way I want without asking me questions about
who will cook and clean for you while on the same hand, you yourself will
ensure you pursue what you want in life because you are the ‘MAIN’ bread
earning member in this family?
I let you be the main bread earning member. Do not doubt for
a moment that if I hadn't married you and decided to put my desires in the
backseat of this car called married life, you would not be the sole bread
winning member.
I let you be this and much more. You bought me clothes and
let me use your money to keep myself. That is because I allowed it to be that
way. Do you honestly think that if I put myself out there in the real world I
won’t be at par with you or maybe higher?
This is not the 1950’s. Your male ego needs to soften or
grow up. A woman is just as capable and always was and always be. Our only
drawback is that the Indian society had put us (as a gender) on the backseat for too
long and raised us telling us we should be a certain way.
Before you got married, did your parents ever bother
lecturing you on how to keep a wife? Ours did. They told us how to behave, what
to say, what not to say, what to wear and how to treat our in laws. Yours
probably didn’t even bother to tell you to treat us as equals.
This is not the 1950’s. In fact, my grandmothers may have
been smarter than my grandfathers. But they were just never allowed to show it.
That’s how our traditional society raised women, to bear their husbands and
their husband’s families with a smile on their face.
Do we not have parents too? If you expect us to live with
your parents and nurture and look after them, don’t we wish to do the same with
the ones who actually spent their lives raising us? Yes, we do. But because the
unspoken laws of tradition were laid down back then, you choose to follow it
because it suits you.
Grow up dear husbands of today. Your sisters, your wives and
your mother’s desire much more than they let on. They are the ones who allowed
you to be who you are or how you are today.
Don’t push the Indian woman of today down. She may have a
child, a husband and a family to look after. Your duty is to look after her and
her life’s dreams. Your duty is not just to ensure she makes you a good home
and caters to you and your family.
Grow up Indian
husbands of today. And Open your Eyes.
