BY HURMAT ALTAF
“A daughter she is, a houri of
paradise;
Once she leaves home it will be
forever.
When someday in distant parts she dwells
Where what people be like! I know not,
Will they awaken her on gentle, mellow sounds?
Or, will they, I misgive, snatch her sleep away?”
(Naseem Shafaie)
A girl child is truly a blessing. Lucky are those parents who are bestowed with a girl child. But unfortunately, as we have observed that a girl child is often considered to be a burden.
In most of the cases, when a girl child is born all the happy faces convert into gloomy ones. The irony of the fact is that the relatives are more concerned about the gender of the baby rather than the parents themselves.
We often fail to comprehend that a girl child is born with her own good luck and she is the responsibility of her very own parents. So, any other orthodox person has nothing to do with her.
Parents play a significant role in the life of their children but when it comes to a daughter, they dedicate their whole life to her. It is because somewhere in their heart they are aware that a day will come when they have to bid a painful goodbye to their beloved daughter.
Parents provide their daughter with unconditional love. In return they just want that whosoever marries their daughter; he and his family should give the same amount of love and respect to her. A father leaves no stone unturned to meet the expenses of his daughter’s marriage.
Because as we all know, marriage in Kashmiri context is a big deal: be it in the form of jewelry (gold), clothes (wardan) or hundreds of other accessories. Everything has to be given to a daughter and not for the sake of dowry only but for the sake of their daughter’s happiness.
It is true and evident that material things decide the happiness of a daughter in her to be home. And thus, like this as Eunice de Souza puts forth, “Marriages Are Made.”
Marriage is the union of two beings. It takes place on the mutual understanding of two individuals but as we have observed, in most of the cases that marriage for a woman is merely a confinement as she has to sacrifice each and everything for it.
From leaving her parents to leaving her identity behind: she accepts everything happily. She is being taught by the society itself to act as a ‘model wife’ that is to look after her husband and children and leave behind all of her desires and wishes.
A woman possesses this level of courage that even at times she gets ready to sacrifice her honor for the sake of her partner. Henrik Ibsen, a great dramatist in one of his works said that “But no man would sacrifice his honor even for love…” to which the reply is, “Millions of women have.” and indeed, millions of women have sacrificed millions of things which men can’t even think of.
Thus, acting as a mute spectator all the time, what does a woman desire for? Nothing but love and respect. The same love and respect they receive in their parent’s home. But unfortunately, if we observe in most cases, she is not given the position she deserves to have. She is always considered to be subordinate to men and faces ‘othering’ almost all the time.
She is not even able to raise her voice against the oppression she faces because she thinks that it is better to endure and compromise for that matter. Basically, it is the fault of our own conventional and conservative society that teaches women from the very childhood to endure and have patience in every situation.
Because she was born a woman and this is the kind of life she has to live, that is a life where she has to compromise and adjust. As Simon De Beauvoir has rightly said that, “One is not born a woman, rather one becomes a woman” and “Gender is a social construct than just a biological construct”.
This then results in the psychological disorders that is the dominance of superego over ego which leads to neurosis and in return has devastating consequences because when emotions are suppressed, it becomes difficult to survive.
Just because of these mental torchers our ‘modern women’ are facing, we might have observed a spike in suicides and suicidal attempts in the contemporary times.
Compromise is also important because to make any relationship stronger we need to give up on enormous number of things but in limits and not at the cost of our mental health.
Thus, I strongly believe, that the only way out for women to adhere a respectful position in a society is to educate them in a proper manner that is to teach them not to veil the oppression they face and thus come out of the quilt to break the myths in which they are caged and fight for their rights.
Hurmat Altaf is pursuing B.A honours in English from Cluster University; Srinagar.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.
The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.