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.