Born and raised in India, I was 32 when I came to the US. India is a strongly patriarchal society. Most adults accept arranged marriages. It is a cultural thing and is unlikely to change in any significant way.
Most Indian marriages "work", by which I mean the divorce rate is low. What happens inside a marriage, we don't know. Is there respect and love or is there abuse? Even when the situation is less than ideal, many couples stay together for the sake of their children. Others don't want to deal with family pressures, something I know firsthand. Many women stay in unhappy loveless marriages because they believe they don't have an option. They are homemakers while the husband is the breadwinner and in that role they are completely dependent on him. Even seemingly loving and supportive parents will encourage their married daughters to "adjust" and "forgive" and return to her marital home. The word of choice is "sahansheel" which translates into patient and tolerant. Things are rarely smooth in the beginning, they are told. Learn to manage and focus on fulfilling your duties, they are advised.
My mom was still in school when her marriage was arranged. Although she went on to get her Masters in Economics, thanks to dad's support and encouragement, seeking employment was unthinkable to her. Dad encouraged her to get a job. She flatly refused. In her opinion, her job was to take care of her husband, children and the household. That is what girls did, most of them, at least. Her mother, her cousins, her neighbors and most of her fellow students were or became homemakers. Me and my siblings benefited from her undivided attention, I am sure. But that doesn't have to be the only way.
When I was ten, one of my classmate's mom was a schoolteacher in our school. Her dad was a college professor. We were family friends too, because my dad knew her dad. I remember visiting her house and reading. She had so many storybooks, I could stay there forever. Come rainy season, we got cheap raincoats. They would tear easily, from the slightest pressure, and rarely lasted the season. Why can't we get Duckback raincoats (the holy grail of raincoats, as I remember), I asked mom in frustration. Because they are expensive, she replied. But Hema has a Duckback raincoat, I argued. They are a two-salary household, mom explained. I understood.
There are no solutions. Only trade-offs. The important thing is that women who choose to work should not be shamed for their choices, just like women who choose to be stay at home moms. A spouse and a family that supports their choices would be the Duckback of happy relationships.
Now that I have explained my origin story, let's look at the current situation.
A certain prominent major party candidate has lamented the fact that getting a divorce is so easy these days. Easy divorces, he went on to say, make a mockery of marriage and scar children forever. His statement claimed that people now “shift spouses like they change their underwear,” and that it had done long-term damage to a generation of children. There is another very well-known person of the same party who has famously changed spouses and cheated on each one them. I would go as far as to say that he went on to put a new underwear before he even removed the previous one. Gross? Exactly. But I digress.
On the face of it, the "childless cat ladies" comment, opposition to reproductive choice, and the desire for women to stay in difficult or even abusive marriages for the sake of children, may be family-friendly. In actuality it is anti-women.
When a man says that women should bear children, even the ones she cannot afford, stay at home to take care of those children, endure a bad marriage for the sake of those children, he reduces women to incubators and caretakers at most. I am sure he does not realize how Taliban-like he sounds when advocating such anti-women viewpoints?
Clearly, this whole marriage-divorce-family-children saga is nothing more than a talking point to attack their opponents and wrest power away from people who are different. If his party really cared about families and the well-being of children, they would support family friendly policies such as Paid Family Leave, Childcare Assistance, Free/Subsidized Primary Education. If his party wanted to keep children from harm, they would support sensible gun laws that could prevent school shootings.
The US presidential election is weeks away. Our vote will determine the safety of our families and the future of our children. Choose wisely.
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