HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME MAN-AGING LIFE AND WORK? GET A WIFE!!

Palzor Machungpa

Tale as old as time. Girl meets boy, girl likes boy, boy takes the girl to meet his family, the family has to approve of the girl’s manners, household skills, multitasking skills and then if everything checks out the family finally say yes to the union. It is a little different for the boy. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, she tells her family about the boy and she takes him to meet the family. The family has only one question for the boy, “Do you have a job?” That is all. He does not get bombarded with questions about cooking and cleaning and multitasking and looking after the whole household.

I turned 30 last year and the one question that I have been harangued with in every family gathering for the past several years has been about my marital status. “When are you going to marry?” Initially, I would gently ask them to back off to which they would tease me with taunts about having a secret girlfriend and then a year later they started to question my sexuality and then these days they bring up the medical condition of my family members into the conversation. My father is in his late 60s and he has several medical restrictions that require him to go to the hospital every week. My mother who is in her mid-50s is always on top of everything related to his medical needs and it is all thanks to her that my father is still alive and breathing. I do my best to assist my mother and make her daily life a little smoother whether it is cooking or cleaning or doing the laundry or just assisting her in anything that she needs. However, whenever we are visited by a relative they ask me, “Son, now bring a good girl home to help your mother with the chores.”

I retaliate with, “So that is the only reason I will ask a girl for a lifelong commitment? To make my parent’s life better?”

They laugh and say the most overused phrase by a parental figure since forever, “Kids these days have no idea!”

What is more sad, I have observed, is that most of the time these questions and statements about the criteria of being a good wife come from the women in my family and the society. From my cousin sisters to the aunty who runs the shop to a random stranger I meet in a cab, most of them are women. They keep tabs of the “good girls” who work and are able to help their mother in the kitchen. They also have updates about the “bad girls” who were seen wearing tight jeans and who go to clubs late at night.

One of my cousin sisters who is a well-read woman in her late 30s recently proposed a match for one of my cousin brothers. She said she is a “good girl” because she was brought up in a village and she does everything from cleaning to cooking to grocery shopping and farming too. I asked her if the girl knows what she is getting into if she decides to go through with the match to which she answered, “There’s nothing to know. He is a well to do man and once married she will adjust.” Side note: My cousin brother is unemployed but he has a three-storeyed building full of tenants.

So is that it? The ultimate solution to life’s everyday problem? Got sick parents at home? Get married. You have no time to cook because you have a full time job? Get married. Got no time to clean the house you built because you have a job and your parents are too old to manage it? Get a wife.

I recently watched a movie called “Mrs.” featuring Sania Malhotra and there is a scene where she is sitting with her mother and father after deciding to leave her husband’s house. Her brother comes home and her mother asks her to calm down and drink a glass of water and bring one for her brother too. She refuses to comply and retaliates with, “He is a grown person. He can get the glass of water on his own”. The mother tells her it is not a big deal but she bursts into tears and says, “Mothers like you have spoiled your sons.”

Looking from the outside it might not be a big deal for a mother or a sister to bring a glass of water for their son or brother but small actions like this or washing their clothes or making their favorite food because they are working long hours result in entitlement where they don’t just expect but think it is normal for a sister or a mother or a wife to keep their brother or father or husband happy just because they are earning or simply because they are men.

In another thought provoking movie called ‘Thappad’, there is a conversation between the characters of Ratna Pathak Shah and Kumud Mishra. Their characters are discussing their daughter’s decision to divorce her husband because he hits her at a party full of people. The mother doesn’t want her to get a divorce. She says, “Women have to learn to tolerate to keep the family together and suppress their feelings.” When her husband asks if she ever had to suppress her feelings, she replies, “Yes. I wanted to sing on All India Radio. But my mother said a home is more important.”

In both of these examples what roles do the fathers or the brothers or the fathers play? They don’t know their privilege or even if they do they don’t take the time to sit down and think about their sense of entitlement. They just automatically assume that the women in their life will compromise and “adjust” or simply put, they do nothing about it. Doing nothing because it doesn’t concern you also means that you are in a position where you don’t have to think about it. What is that? That is called a privilege.

And what about the women? They either stay in silence and suppress and compromise or if a handful of them speak out and resist they are questioned and mocked and labelled as being “dramatic”, “difficult” or “spoilt” or just a “bitch”. It is also a generational thing where mothers and mothers-in-law pass on their idea of being a “good wife” to their daughters and daughters-in-law.

Most of their teachings are about cooking and cleaning and laundry and if they work, manage both their work and household. I tip my hat to the women who can do it all with grace and dignity and without any complaints. I am not saying these teachings are bad but why is it only exclusive to girls and not the boys?

Being a son to a mother who is carrying her mother-in-law’s teachings with her for the past 30+ years, I have come to the realization that for a woman, no matter what she does or what she achieves in her life, the standard of being “enough” or just “fine” is unattainable. The bar is always rising.

People say, “We have come so far” but have we really? It is not progress if you have to highlight how much reservation or rights you have for women. It should be a norm.And while I am at it when a woman says that she wants equality she does not mean she wants to physically compete with you in a sport or arm wrestle you. She just wants you to not question her choices just because she is a woman.

If you want to change the world, start from your house. Teach your sons to cook and clean and take care of themselves. Teach them to respect women and treat them with dignity and respect that they deserve. Teach your fathers and grandfathers to thank their wives and daughters-in-law when they cook their favorite meal and are multitasking between work and kitchen. Call out your friends when they want to enjoy their bachelor life with “bad girls” in the club but want a “good wife” who can do it all. While you’re at it learn to get your own cup of tea or better make one for your mother or your wife or your sister.

About the author:

PalzorMachungpa is a freelance writer and a medical interpreter