why I hate the idea of being a wife

 This week in AP lang we had a chance to discuss the piece "I want a Wife" by Judy Brady (Syfers). This piece was especially significant to me because of the cultural parallels I was able to draw between the piece and my own experience growing up in a first gen Indian American household. Brady further illustrates the absolutely suffocating standards placed on women but more specifically wives.

At many points in the piece Brady refers to the double standards women but specifically wives face. As someone from a particularly conservative Indian household, I've known for years that my marriage is a popular topic of discussion. It's never been particularly concerning to my parents but each time I return "home" I am reminded that my identity is directly tied to some man I've never even met and that I don't want to meet. This summer on a flight back from Indore I was seated next to my grandpa, or baba as I call him, and we started talking about my classes. As I was talking about how much I enjoyed my APUSH class last year (unpopular opinion i know) he started telling me about how I only needed to focus on my education right now and later he and my amma would find me a husband. "Me and your Amma are VERY concerned about you and your sister's marriage" he told me after. But this wasn't something crazy or even foreign for him to say. My paternal grandparents have always been a bit more on the patriarchal side. And even when he started telling me about how I needed to be careful of the way I dressed and how my education would help me find a husband I wasn't surprised. It just reminded me that to them and my relatives my whole existence was defined by some imaginary man who I didn't even know. While I've faced the marriage talk quite often either from my grandpa or other family members my male cousin has had the polar opposite of this experience. There has been 0 talk of marriage and a future wife rather only discussions of when to start his college fund or whether he should be an engineer or a doctor. When my cousin was born a few years ago my grandparents were overjoyed, a boy would carry on the family name and hopefully make something of himself. When my sister and I were born there was a different reaction. My grandma refused to talk to my mom for almost 2 years due to the fact that my sister and I were both born girls. I've never known the affection and love my grandma shows for my cousin and I probably never will. Almost immediately after he was born it also became clear to my sister and I that he would receive most of our grandparents' assets. The gold, jewelry and reserves were bequeathed to him upon birth while my sister and I are lucky to receive the odd phone call from our grandparents lamenting that we don't reach out to them enough. Brady exemplifies these double standards in this quote specifically "I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course of studies. This quote to me encapsulates my experience perfectly. My education and achievements make me marketable in the marriage department, but my husbands will make him a better man.  He gets to be serious about his dreams and passions, but my ideas are only trivial and therefore easier to dismiss. This distinction in how we're both perceived is why I'm not the grandchild that will bring honor to our family name or make them proud; I'm the girl whose dowry they have to pay and marry off. It's why I'm not treated the same as my cousin. He is an investment, but I am a burden.

 But more than that I hate the idea of being a wife because for so many women in my family it has stripped their individuality and rendered them as mothers first and people second. Brady further shows this with "When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who will take care of the babysitting arrangements". The wife doesn't have friends she has kids. He's the one allowed to make friends and have a social life that doesn't revolve around his children. My mother used to be a professor in India but was forced to give it all up in order to take care of me and my sister full time. Her dreams and aspirations were cut short due to familial & societal pressure to be a full-time mom. It's why she's always pushed me to work hard. She doesn't want me to be confined to the same fate.

Now obviously many marriages do not look like this. I have seen people who have a real genuine connection and love each other as well as support each other as families. But for most women in India this isn't normal. Women are expected to become housemaids, nannies and chefs all while giving up their own aspirations for their husband. And this is normalized because these marriages aren't based on love but rather a mutual need to fulfill societal expectations. Arranged marriages are what's "respectable" but until I meet a single Indian man who wants an arranged marriage for a reason besides not wanting to pay for a housemaid, I will abhor the idea of being a traditional Indian wife. 

Bridgerton and traditional gender roles

 Response to question 6.

The Bridgerton series if you're unfamiliar is about an alternative history universe that follows the Bridgerton family and their navigation through the marriage markets of London. Despite the alternative history depicted much of the constraints on women of that age regarding occupation, marriage and social hierarchies still remains. On the 3rd season of the show, we are met again with one of the series' most popular characters Penelope Featherington. She is shown re-entering society upon her 5th season. For the women of Bridgerton this is a shameful fact for Penelope. If she doesn't find a husband by now, it's likely that she will become a spinster. A spinster is a woman who remains unmarried, has no family and likely several cats. But why exactly is Penelope at such a risk of becoming a spinster? I mean surely someone out there likes or cares about Penelope and would want to marry her. Sadly, the reason Penelope has no ring is because she's conventionally unattractive. A short girl, on the larger side and from a struggling high society family she doesn't have very many traits that appeal to what the men of that age want in a wife. Eventually however with the help of her friend Colin Bridgerton, Penelope is able to attract a suitor but not without rather drastic physical changes. Fake nails, eyelashes and dresses better suited to her body help Penelope fit the standard mold of perfect wives the London Marriage Market churns out every year to rather ugly men who have never so much as cut their toenails. Penelope isn't unique she's a reflection of a common trope in movie and TV shows for years. The smart unattractive girl gets a makeover to get a boyfriend because somehow that's the one thing she's missing in life. By contrast women like Lady Whistle down (the unknown town gossip monger) are able to sustain their own lifestyle through their resources and writing capability. During a time when most women were expected to remain perfect, wholesome dutiful wives I found the Lady Whistledown character to be the most interesting. She doesn't confine to traditional gender roles in the same way that Penelope has to and can be successful simply based off of her writing. But perhaps the most integral part of this is the fact that Lady Whistledown is an unknown author. She's able to escape traditional expectations by remaining unknown. You can't impose societal constrictions on women who aren't even a part of society. 

But despite having to step out of conventional gender roles to become Lady Whistledown, she herself further perpetuates these gender roles upon the women of London. Rather than using her platform and voice to encourage women to seek solace in something other than her husbands she uses it to attack and publicly shame women who dare to step out of their traditional roles as beautiful, demure, polite figurines. This is shown by Marina, Penelope's cousin who after getting her crush Colin Bridgerton's courtship Penelope donning her alter ego of Lady Whistledown writes an expose piece determined to completely isolate and ostracize Marina from high society which she is successful in doing. So, while Penelope is inherently stepping out of gender roles as Lady Whistledown she does as much to uphold those gender restrictions as anybody else in society if not more.