Do parents change after their daughter’s marriage?
Priyanka Chopra shares an anecdote in one of her interviews. There was a nameplate on the door of his house with his parents’ name written on it. Priyanka asks her father why her name is not there? Doesn’t she live here? His father smiled and said that it was good that you pointed out our mistake. All of us girls are searching for that place at home.
He didn’t mocked her but accepted his mistake. Instead of two houses, one house on which you do not have to ask for your right. Why do parents still hesitate to accept their daughters? Why are parents still unable to accept their daughters even today? Why can’t she find her name and place in her own house? Why did she have to fight for her rights? There are too many questions.
Society says a woman’s place is in her in-laws house but why can’t she find her own place? Many celebrate the joy that a lot of today’s generation parents are raising daughters equal to sons. These parents don’t believe in differentiating between sons and daughters.
They believe in giving equal rights to both of them. But sadly this sense of equality is just till the time daughters are not married. The girl who was free to take care of her parents, post-marriage, had to seek multiple levels of approvals to even meet her parents. Her childhood dream of “When I grow up, I will take care of my mother and father” is shattered forever. It is heartbreaking how marriage strips her of every right to take care of her parents.
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Which place did she call herself a home?
She thought of her husband home of hers but she doesn’t know anybody at that place. Will she able to call that place her home? Are men facing this problem? The answer is complete no. Men have homes that are wholly and completely theirs, they never need doubt their ownership nor their rights over it.
Unless there is a family dispute, and even then no one disputes that it is the men who have a right to it. Their life don’t change after marriage. They still belong to their home. A girl life drastically change after marriage. Why I am writing in anguish? Why I am so angry? Why I am angry at men? The simple answer is, I am not angry at men. I know there are men who stay away from their homes and families for years, either studying hard or earning a living for their people back home.
But the fact remains that they always, always, have a home to go back to, to assert as their own. While their wives back in their (husbands’) homes live in a state of quandary, unable to determine whether either of their homes is actually theirs. I am angry with the patriarchal thinking of parents. In Spite of education and how much women can earn, she doesn’t belong to their own home. She is considered as a paraya dhan which means her real place belongs with her in laws and she is just a guest at her parent’s place. She is considered guest at her own place after marriage.
Many would suggest their daughter to feel lucky they have two homes but in reality she has none. She is looking for a home where her heart belongs. When the daughter is in her in-laws house, her heart flies to get back to her parents house and when she is in her own house she wants to travel back to her husband’s house. Women want to be in both places but sadly she belongs to none.
Her parents considered it a responsibility which was fulfilled after marriage. She doesn’t want to be felt as a guest. Just like what Priyanka Chopra has said that her name plate would be always there whether she is staying in her house or not. She just wanted to be treated as equal to her brother. We can create a just and equal world where no one is held back by restrictive gender norms.
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