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A patriarchal society doesn't really consider a daughter in law as a person in her own right. Here's almost a rant by a beleaguered bahu!
A patriarchal society doesn’t really consider a daughter in law as a person in her own right. Here’s almost a rant by a beleaguered bahu!
I’ve found that women from the husband’s side cannot help but poke their noses in our lives. They have serious issues with men of the house entering the kitchen, they get drastically offended if a guest of the house even gets the water bottle on their own from the fridge. They expect the bahu of the house to be the butler, cook, caretaker of the house, kids and the elders.
Elders in our society have special privilege – they can get away saying anything that comes to their minds, and no matter how bruised your self esteem is, you are expected to stay mum, because “badon ko jawab dena to hamari sabhyata ke khilaf hai” (it is against our culture to talk back to elders).
It’s ok for the bahu to not to attend to her few months old baby but it’s against their ethics to let the grown ass adults to help themselves! Coz they are born to order around the bahu of the house to get the slightest of their needs fulfilled.
Even if they consider themselves ‘broad-minded’, these so called liberal in-laws are cool for their daughters, but are damn narrow minded for their daughters in law.
It’s ok for the daughter of the house to wake up at noon ‘coz the poor girl hasn’t slept the entire night, taking care of her cranky baby. But if the bahu of the house even takes a nap after being awake the entire night because of the same reason, she is “not well brought up by her parents”!
This patriarchal society is as much as because of such women as it is because of the men, though the women are the ones who more often actually speak like this, especially the older women in extended family. These sadist ‘aunties’ cannot digest the fact that life is comparatively easier for their daughters in law, and they make it a point to torture them to feel good about themselves.
These aunties seriously need to get a life other then interfering in the lives of their daughters in law. They are all very sympathetic towards the saas of the house, kyuki bechari is umar me kitna sahe? (how much will she tolerate at this age?)
And then come out all baseless comparisons with other ‘docile’ bahus of the family, and of course unwanted advice to be a perfect sanskari bahu. These mothers in law (or the aunties in law) are well programmed to create a melodrama at the most vulnerable times, and throwing about the phrase “hamne to bahut sangarsh kiye hai!” (we have struggled so much in our lives!) at every possible occasion. This ‘waterworks phenomena’ is like a bulls-eye to prove the indecency of the bahu of the house.
Well to sum it all, bahus are the most worthless creatures in the panorama of the Indian society.
No matter how well established, how well educated these bahus are, they are not supposed to have their own mind, their own views and their own wishes. A bahu is expected to cast herself according to the wishes of the multitude of people from her in laws side, but should expect no flexibility even from the remotest of the relatives, getting to face cold glances from everyone even on the slightest argument with her mother in law.
Well that’s our Indian society: “badon ka adar karna hi hamari sabhyata hai!” (in our culture we have to give respect to our elders!), and only bahus are expected to make all the transitions and compromises. A sad world we are living in!
Image source: YouTube
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