These days, the word ‘marriage' always makes its way into conversations and leaves a sense of foreboding among most girls my age, 20 or 21. Suddenly, many girls we know are getting married; some are already mothers. The whole stigma of “complete your basic education and the next day we'll get you married” has always seemed to be a thing out of Hindi soaps and the fate of girls from less privileged homes. But all on a sudden, it is happening around us, even in the most urban of homes. Some do it in the name of horoscope, some cite finances/retirement age; but, mostly, it is done because it has become a way of our society — that if girls are not married off at the ‘proper' age, there will be a dearth of grooms.
Now, you would ask, if the Constitution doesn't have any problem and as in most cases the girls themselves don't seem to have any problems, why make an issue out of it? Most would even have a ready answer, ‘Oh! It is normal for girls her age to be nervous, but it has to be done right?' Has to be done? But why? For 18 years we have been made to compete with our peers irrespective of whether they are girls/guys; applauded for beating guys to make it to the top. Our education is talked about; any reference to our ‘future' means our career. Why then, when boys my age are still talking about their careers and laughing at relationships, we start getting the whiff of that ‘Oh so sacred' word marriage? Isn't this a classic case of society caught in between the old and new times?
Imagine what a girl from a reasonably urban household goes through when her parents say after she gets out of college — “We're giving you six months' time; get yourself a job or else we're going to search for grooms!” In another instance, hardly does one land a job, when prospective ‘alliances' pop out of nowhere. All anyone wants to know from parents of girls who are of age in the so-called marriage-market is, “So have you started searching for grooms?” By complying with such a society what a parent does is to snatch away the space that a guy so easily gets and which a girl forgoes (almost always silently).
Don't get me wrong – I am not talking of what happens afterwards. One of my friends had an ‘early' marriage and by the looks of it, is having a fabulous time abroad with her husband. Another one is into glorious motherhood. All I am trying to say is if you, as a parent, instead of poring over all those horoscopes, spend a little time with your daughter, knowing whether she is really ready for the next big stage of her life at 21/22 and respecting her thoughts, it would be a greater gift than all those years of education you provided her. I also wish, for the sake of the parents too, that after all that they do for her; they don't drive her to the point of making her wonder — ‘Was I always a burden to them and no more…'!
(The writer email is sath_subramanian@yahoo. com)
