An Open Letter From A Happily Married Woman, To All Marriage Jokes And Memes Out There

We routinely receive marriage jokes and memes that can be almost cruel in their gender stereotyping. Do they really define us and our marriages?

Dear marriage-memes, who use marriage as a brunt for your jokes, thrown recklessly at many a dinner table conversation,

This letter is from a happily married woman who takes no crap, who knows her worth and who will not be stereotyped into your “married she-devil” moulds. Hope this letter finds all you marriage jokes, in the pink of health.

So before I begin this letter, let me throw light on one of your jokes:

“First comes the engagement ring,
Then comes the wedding ring,
Then comes the suffer-ring!”

How very well written. So this was one joke I found among a million others in a website dedicated to ‘Clean Marriage Jokes’. So if this is supposedly ‘clean’, I wonder how much more unclean it can get.

Why make such a big fuss over something so trivial, you say? Well let’s put it this way: Why marry into such suffering, knowingly? “Oh come on, it’s just a joke”, I can hear you say. But buddy, come to terms with it: I’m sick, you’re sick, we’re all sick of it.

My rotis are not round, my cooking is not so flawless, my spring cleaning is not OCDish, my nagging is non-existent, my post-wedding body is much lighter than my pre-wedding chubbiness, my husband loves me to bits and I love him back more, I don’t watch saas-bahu soaps, I’m not into wicked gossiping, and no I don’t beat my husband and vice-versa. So you see, dear marriage-jokes, I don’t fit into your moulds, AT ALL.

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

But still, I know, you will taunt me at every family gathering, you will try pulling my leg at every christening function, you will mock me and make the crowd laugh at every wedding bash to come. I know you, and you know me too. You have your very own agents of destruction and they make it a point to carry you safe and through. But I’ve changed, dear marriage-joke, I’ve changed so much.

The young bride who softly bore it all, all because she didn’t want to be called a ‘wild misfit’ in her new family, the girl who demurely smiled through her fury at your jokes about her cooking, her rotis not being round, her dropping all dreams post-marriage, is no more. No girl stays as an young bride for long, you see. We evolve, some of us more than our peers. Some of us grow wings, the others just tuck it into our saree folds. But people like me, dear marriage-jokes, are the worst of the lot. We fight! We fight back! And we don’t fight fair! How disastrous is that?

Our demure stances become poisonously nasty around you. We will not think twice before handling the weapon (the kitchen knife) that you think, is assigned to the female race. Some of us are just sick and bored of your so-called sense of humour, dear marriage-jokes. Some of us are hurt but still passively aggressive. But most of us, my friend, are goddesses of revenge, that you need to look out for.

You see, all of us, even the tiniest kid in our brood, knows you are all lies and not an iota of truth lies in your filthy bodies. And still, you have had a very successful run around, haven’t you? You must be proud, for infiltrating our system and making some of us believe that some truth lurks beneath all your brittle fakeness.

You see, people like you have grown to believe that it is ok to have stock reasons and stereotypes for all of us married women (and sometimes, men too). That we are all your puppets who should flutter about and laugh at ourselves, with you.

But dear marriage-joke, did I tell you this?

Marriage is no joke, unlike you. And most of us have been in love, are still in love and will always be in love, and will never fail to lose our strength in times of trial: Love. Because, dear friend, that is what brought two people together in the first place. Nothing but love. And still, some of us weakly resist your stupid charms and imagine they are indeed, victims of marriage, when they actually are not, when they are happily married.

You see, we come in all shapes and sizes. We are the conquerors and makers, we are one and we are all, we are the face of all tomorrows, but above all, my friend, we are your worst nightmare. Because someday, you’d have run out of jokes to tell about us at a kitty party and that day, we’ll all be equal, undivided by gender and gender roles, gender prejudices and gender shaming. That day my friend, you will die slowly from the inside, knowing you lived a long, long, healthy life. All because of our kindness, dear jokes. All because we let you live among us for long.

But we are not all that venomous you see, we will give you a safe burial, far from where we live.
But I’m sorry, my friend, you will die someday, and that day is not too far away.
We will kill you, slowly but surely, and we will bury you too, don’t worry.

Because we are women and amidst all that sweetness and strong will, lies the real reason as to why hurricanes are still being named after us.

Good bye and good riddance,

A happily married woman who hates marriage jokes with a passion.

Image source: married couple by Shutterstock.

Comments