When is the right time to get married? This is a question that haunts me till now. Many people have many answers for this. One of my friend said she got married when she had a situation that made her do so and she went with the flow. Another said she got married when he parents said so. Many answers are there for this question. As the Titan Raaga ad says "only get married when you feel to". But what if I never feel that I should get married. What makes me afraid is marriage is a responsibility that any women have to take.
Lucky are those who got married to those whom they were in love or those who felt they have to spent their rest of the life with that person. What about those who are not in love or rather who don't have time to be in love? I once believed true love exists and then I learned it never did, at least from what I saw in my life. I learned marriage is all about "adjustments". In India, marriage is all about "sacrifices" and especially that is only meant for women.
Any women who get married are expected to leave their family which includes her parents and siblings, with whom she spent her entire life and which is also her world. By marriage she would only add one more person to her world. But in India people want her to erase all others and only include her husband. And the man can have everyone in his world, his parents and entire family along with his wife. Does that even make any sense? To me it doesn't. Why should I leave my parents who gave their life to bring me up and whom I love till death, for a man who I saw yesterday. I can accommodate him along with them. Else I prefer not to be married.
Women are expected to throw their jobs away when they have a child. What about men? Is the child only hers? Is it not his? She should throw her job away, look after the child till that child turns 3 or 4 years. Then the next child will be on the way and again look after that child. Man will only play the role of giving good things to the child and earning money for the family. Responsibility comes equally to both people, but the mother carries 90% of them. Why? Because a child needs a mother more than a father? Come on. That's crap. A child needs both of them equally. Raymond ad may show a man taking leave from work, so that his wife can peacefully go to work without worrying about their kid. But that is never possible in real life, at least to 90% of the women in India. Why should I sacrifice my life and my job for my kids and husband? In the end , what do I get? Kids happily settled with their family and I alone with/ without my husband regretting over the choice I made in life? That will never happen in my life. I value my career more than anything, because that gives me a position in the society and my own earned money for which I don't have to beg to my husband, so that I can fulfill my needs and my parents needs.
When all these conditions of 90% comes up, I think the best option for me is to never get married to an Indian. Rather I will marry someone from a Western country or even from Africa where women get more freedom than here. Else I should be that damn lucky to find a man who can satisfy all these needs. I have my friends who respect women a lot and agree with this view point. So not all Indian's are like-minded. Some are different. Yet the issue is there are only some.
