Institutionalized marriage

I do not write this coz today is women’s day and I have something to say about it. Nor do I write this coz I want to take a stand on a serious issue, cause people to look up to me as a role model or whatever. I write this coz I’m genuinely confused and this is something that has been plaguing me for a long time.

My classmates and I have never been quite on the same bandwidth. This is one of the first things I noticed when I came to this college and something I’ve never been able to come completely to terms with. Yes, we have agreed to disagree but still there are times when I wonder how we can even belong to the same species. Sometimes it just feels like we’re on two different planets, when it’s just me vs the rest of Them. I took a resolution a few years back to never judge anything or anybody without looking at both sides of the picture. But one case and one long-standing argument where I just cant see the other side, where I am completely blind to Their side is ‘Marriage’.

3 years with Them and I still haven’t been able to grasp what They see in marriage or why with Their every action, They seems to gravitate towards it. They look forward 5 years from now and all they can see is a McDonalds happy family. I look forward 5 years and all I can see is a good, satisfying, mentally-stimulating job, a small house of my own, a backpack trip across Europe and if possible a puppy ( gimme a dog any day over a guyJ). Marriage only figures somewhere in the distant future and even then its just a vague, obscure concept. Whereas for Them, it’s the one part which is clearly defined. They may change their ideas on career every 5 seconds but somehow their very vivid picture of a big, noisy wedding, a husband, two kids never changes. That is something which I’ve never been able to understand. Why would anybody ever want to get married immediately after college? Its not like most of them already have a guy in mind and thus since They’ve realized they want to spend the rest of their life with someone, They want the rest of their life to start real soon. No, its not even that. For most of them, Their future husband is just some tall, handsome guy without a face (though how a guy without a face can be handsome is beyond me).

And to top it all, They have all, at one point or the other, tried to convince me that married life is the best part of life for a girl and how I should look forward to it and try to grab it as early as possible. And when I decline or worse still try to make Them see sense, They smile knowingly and mutter something about how ‘people like me’ are the first to get married. *shudder*. Or worse still, They just shake Their heads sadly and tell me that I’ll only get a wheezing, doddering old grandfather for a husband if I decide to get married so late in life (apparently 27 years of age amounts to the autumn of life in Their world. Oh sorry 24 is autumn, 27 is winter without christmas). And sometimes the conversation spills over to how ‘western influences have corrupted my mind, and how, soon, I’ll start supporting live-in relationships (unfortunately for Them I already support live-in relationships) and homosexual relationships (yes, I support that too) and other banes of the bad west world. Seriously, there are times when I don’t know what era I live in. I swear my grandmother is more forward-thinking than They are. Why would anyone want to get married at 21??? I agree I am commitment-phobic and maybe that is coloring my judgement but even otherwise I want to forge an identity of my own before deciding to merge it with another. I don’t mind being one half of a pair, but I cant imagine it being the ‘be all end all’ of my life. I want, no I need time to figure out what I want to do with my life before I rush into marriage. I’ve got places to go, people to see, experiences aplenty. I don’t want to risk being tied down by family or responsibility before doing everything I want to.

I guess it all boils down to this deeply ingrained notion of a woman’s role in a marriage. Most of Them are planning to marry a nice well-established guy (whatever that means) and quit working after marriage (if They think that is the passport to luxury, They’re in for a huge shock). I, for whom financial independence has always equated to a job, will never give it up permanently unless it’s pried from my cold dead fingers. Whatever. And thankfully I don’t have to fight the world for it and I have a mom who’ll kick my butt even if I, in a fit of recklessness, entertain the idea of getting married at 21 and sitting at home full time.

Maybe, as They say, I’ll get jealous when all of Them are married by the time we’re 24 and I’m still single. Maybe I’ll feel lonely and insecure and stigmatized and give in to societal pressure. And maybe tomorrow we’ll clean up our politics and India and Pakistan will become the best of friends. Whatever. They can keep dreamingJ