Parents try to drill the idea of homemakers into their daughters, starting with playthings given to them: dolls and cookery sets
I wonder how many of us have thought about the ever-changing relationships of women, from birth to death. We know most of those relationships but we take them for granted, as an ongoing process. This Dasain I decided to observe the constant adjustments that take place in a women’s life.
To start with, when a girl child is born, if she is lucky, as a daughter she will be cherished, loved and brought up. But if the family is more patriarchal, she will be considered a burden right from the beginning. That will shape her future. Despite this most girls will go to school and have a normal life. They will be worshipped as Maa, Laxmi, Kumari, Kanya, etc. till they are old enough to start menstruating.
Also, words like discipline, restrictions, fashion, dress code, dos and don’ts become regular features of her life along with home making, cooking and cleaning. For some education, knowledge, freedom, family support, encouragement, independence and equality also feature in their life. It’s a different story whether they make good use of these situations. What does not change is that being a daughter comes with responsibilities too! In all this modernization also plays a big role.
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Home schooling
Parents try their best to drill the idea in their daughter that they are homemakers, starting with playthings provided to them: dolls and cookery sets. As they grow older, mothers train them to cook, clean and entertain guests. They are also disciplined to take charge of the cultural aspect at home because they are responsible for carrying over the family’s culture when they get married. In all situations, parents are quick to inform their daughter of her responsibilities at home; constantly reminding her to be feminine, graceful, modest, humble, submissive, and obedient too! Some however will find guts to revolt.
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Regardless of the situation, parents are always in a hurry to push their daughter over to the other relation: a wife and buhari and, eventually, a mother. Some girls have to discontinue their school education after they become homemakers and mothers. Others will get to the 10th grade if their parents are a bit conscious—and that is too late already. Lucky ones will finish their 12th grade before the marriage bug bites their parents. By the time they find a candidate, the girl will have found enough courage to tell her parents that she wants to be a professional before getting married.
That puts a halt to everything. In the meantime she will have found a person of her choice and that is the end of the story. If parents agree, she then becomes an object of ‘kanyadaan’ and will get married, and if they don’t, she will still get married. In all this the girl will not have realized that alienating her parents is not beneficial for her. She needs to realize she is going into a new family and she needs all the support she can muster to maintain some status. She needs a lot of scaffolding to be able to function properly in her new home: her sasurali. Some will realize the difference between being a daughter and a buhari the hard way.
Of sasus and buharis
Of course she will be a daughter in her maiti, but with marriage she will gain two important relationships: wife and buhari. Two big responsibilities no one bothered to explain about, land on her shoulders. Everything the girl has gained till now is from observation and hearsay and if she is smart enough, from books and internet. As a wife she needs to satisfy just her husband, but as a buhari, she has to satisfy a gamut of other relationships that rush by her: Bhauju, maiju, jethani, deurani, you name it. Balancing all these ties gets very difficult. Life becomes complicated and rather difficult in the new household. The girl is expected to fit into the family of her husband seamlessly. The impact however is often tremendous and many have a hard time coming to terms with the transition from a daughter to a buhari, (daughter-in-law!!).
In all this the psychological pressure is often overlooked. Little effort is made to understand the turmoil of a new bride: Ardhangini, sharing everything with her husband, including herself, activities at new home and on the economic front. Adjusting to a new and completely strange and sometimes unfamiliar environment becomes crucial. Especially the challenge of living up to the expectations of the new family and the society at large keeps the buhari constantly on her guard. If the couple decides to live separately, the girl will move away a little from the overwhelming atmosphere of the joint family, but the relationships and responsibilities do not go away.
Yes, mothers have faced this ‘sasu-buhari’ dilemma, but often neglect to mention it to their daughters, because of their pride and ego. They don’t want their daughters to know what they have gone through. Now parents are becoming more aware of the problems faced by their daughters after marriage. Hence they counsel but the daughters, because of their own ego and pride, are stubborn to accept it. They rather choose to face the problem and solve it on their own, whatever the situation, including some form of ‘suppression’ on the part of the Sasus (mothers-in-law).
In the past sasus suppressed their buharis in the name of “discipline”. Even now the trend continues but in moderation. Now the suppression exerted by educated Sasus is more subtle and complex. In spite of the struggle aspiring women in Nepal are trying their best to emancipate themselves from the age-old feudal social conventions.
Right balance
The expectation of the sasus is that they will try and bring their buharis (who are also young professionals) under their umbrella and groom them so that they are able to face the world better. Of course it is a stitched relationship and will never be seamless. The best sasus can do is to make it look seamless by being a mother to their buharis, thus easing the existing tension between the older and younger generations. By the time buharis have mastered the art of balancing relationships, she is ready for yet another relation: grandmother.
Women will have to be smart enough to adjust to the ever-changing relations that she has to adjust to throughout her life. Hopefully marriages will become more of a cooperative effort in the future. Now that is not too much to ask for, right parents?
The author is an educationist and author of several children’s books
usha@pokharel.net
