Let Your Daughter Live Life On Her Own Terms Instead Of Staying In A Toxic Marriage!

Not every marriage comes with the successful and happily ever after tag. In some marriages, this concept fails. So what does a woman do in such a situation?

In our culture, a daughter is considered Goddess Laxmi. The day she is born, we say “Ghar me Laxmi aayi hai.” (Laxmi is born in our house) She lives like a princess at her home. In the blink of an eye, she is of the marriageable age and leaves her house to spend the rest of her life with the man of her dreams.

But unlike in fairy tales, the man doesn’t come alone. He comes with his whole family. In our culture the woman isn’t supposed to only accept her husband but his family too. This is quite a normal thing.

Despite doing everything to make things normal in an unsuccessful marriage, the woman gathers a lot of courage for her happiness. She chooses to leave the toxic relationship. But society has issues with that as well. They believe, that a woman once married must spend her entire life with her husband and in-laws. The fact that they might be physically, mentally or even emotionally torturing her only means, she has to adjust, no matter what.

It is very difficult for women to come out of toxic marriages and get used to their lives again. But just as she’s about to do that, the society’s ‘chaar log’ enter her life. These people were nowhere near her when her in-laws tortured and harassed her. The society doesn’t see the torture meted out to someone’s daughter but as soon as the woman chooses her own happiness, society starts to poke their nose in.

She is unable to stay at her own house too

It becomes difficult to live at her own house after the toxic marriage. Very often, she and her family are asked questions like, ‘How long has your daughter been married? Why does she stay here?’ ‘Abhi toh shaadi hui, itna time bhi sehen nai hota usse? Yeh toh har shaadi mein hota hai.’ (Didn’t she just get married? Can’t she even tolerate a little bit of pain? All this is quite normal in every marriage)

After so much provocation from the society, even the family starts asking her to go back to ‘her house.’ She is told that everyone faces issues in the beginning and once a kid is born, thing will be fine.

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Can someone in this whole world world guarantee women that once a child is born, the woman will get equal status, respect and love in family? Can you tell her in writing that after the child, her life will be fairytale like – the kind she’d dreamt of?

I don’t disagree that a child can change the whole atmosphere, but this doesn’t guarantee a happy married life. If this were the truth, I believe, the concept of single moms wouldn’t have existed. Every married couple would’ve lived their life happily ever after. Having child and having a happy marriage are two totally different things and people really need to understand this.

Let women have the right to walk away

If a woman is not happy in her marriage and after being forced to have a child, the situation, quite often remains the same for her. Or in some cases, even becomes more difficult for her. If she wishes to walk out of a marriage as a wife, it is comparatively an easy thing to do.

However, things tend to change a lot and it becomes almost impossible for her to leave. A society that doesn’t accept a woman who walked out a marriage is hardly going to accept a mother to keep the child away from its father.

What is woman supposed to do in such a situations? Is she supposed to live in that toxic relation because that relation has approval from the society?

Picture credits: Still from Hindi movie Videsh – Heaven On Earth.

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