As A Married Woman, Is My Parents’ Home No Longer My Home?

I wonder which is my home. I wonder if it is the one where I grew up, where I learnt to walk and talk. I wonder if it is the home where I stepped in after getting married and was told that this is my home now. I wonder if my home is where I currently live, in another city. I am confused. I am bewildered. I am hurt.

This is the Chaitra month in the Bengali calendar. Then comes the start of a new year. I was planning to go to the homes where I grew up (my parents live there) and my in-laws house. I would be traveling in the Chaitra month.

My parents and my in-laws objected to it. They said that if you leave your house in the month of Chaitra then you should come back also to your home in that same month.

Why do they force us to accept your in-laws house as your own? Why do your parents abandon you after you get married? I feel like I’m being tossed around according to everyone’s whims. I am living inside a suitcase.

I have memories, happy and sad, in both of these homes. But tradition and old ancient tales do not accept these.

They have not understood that today a woman leaves her home to study and pursue a job. She is still deprived of the right to call her previous homes as her own. In today’s world, where we say we are progressing; I feel we have taken a backward step and are still there. I wish to stand up and make my own traditions. I wish to call every place I have spent in, my home. Why am I not allowed to do that?

Image source: a still from the film Methi Ke Laddoo

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

Comments