We all associate marriages with ceremonies, dressing up, good food, and rituals, but what is the actual meaning of a marriage? Everyone has a different definition of this word. Since I grew up in India, marriage is just not the union of two people, instead, it is a union of two families. It is a lifelong commitment. Even today it is recognizable that men exercise more power than women in a marriage relationship. The essay elaborates it further.
In violent marriages, it has always been that men are the ones who are violent because they hold power whereas women are the ones who are abused in most cases and are considered less powerful. “He argues that our journey of Western patriarchy begins with seeing how it works and what it does to us, how we participate in it, and how we might choose differently. For example, in explaining the high levels of violence against women, Johnson argues that in a patriarchal system, women’s place is to help contain men’s resentment over being controlled by other men… men are allowed to dominate women as a kind of compensation for their being subordinated to other men because of social class, race or other forms of inequality”. (Denis 23) In Asian countries, marriages are mostly accompanied by transfers, in the form of money or expensive gifts between the families of the bride and the groom. This dowry practice has led to a reinforcement of stereotypes about male domination and female subordination in marriage.
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Gender roles play an important role in marital satisfaction and it’s important that these gender roles should change to make marriage a success. I grew up in a country that follows traditional gender roles. The gender roles of men in a traditional society have associated with words such as “breadwinner”, “master of the house” etc. whereas women’s gender roles are all about “homemaker”, “mother”, “cook” etc. Such words for men are used because they are supposed to earn money and provide for the family. They are responsible for the financial security of the family, whereas women are supposed to stay at home, look after the house, and cook for the family and she is responsible for the upbringing of the children, basically, they have to do everything that pleases their man. “Women bore, suckled and raised children, while men had the time and opportunity to develop social institutions – including the family – through which they were able to appropriate power and control over women and children”. (Hamilton 18) Even if a woman does a full-time job she still has to do all the household chores along with her job outside her house, which means she has to do double work. Moreover, traditionally it could be seen that she always has to leave her career behind to raise her kids. Thus, the involvement of women in the economic workforce and public life has not been replaced by men’s involvement into domestic work. Women are expected to assume numerous responsibilities as wives, mothers, daughters, workers, etc. On the contrary, men are expected to assume only one role and that is of a breadwinner, with least obligations towards responsibilities. The more flexible the gender roles will be the more happiness it will create in a marriage. Thus, there should be a proper division of labor for marital happiness. Moreover, the stereotype of men as breadwinners has led to the prioritization of boys’ education whereas the stereotype of women as confined to the house and family has led to obstacles in their equal access to education. Gender stereotype has occurred in the social roles of men and women both at home and at work. There isn’t a proper division of labor, in the domestic sphere women are supposed to do the majority of the domestic routine work and at workplace women are mostly offered people oriented jobs rather than competitive jobs that can lead to growth in their careers.
Same-sex marriage is a really delicate topic in today’s world. Same-sex marriage occurs between two people that have the same gender. Everyone has their own views and beliefs about same-sex marriage’ or ‘gay marriage’. With time these beliefs are changing and they are becoming more complaisant towards such marriages but not everyone views these couples as normal. Marriage is a basic human right and a person’s individual choice, so the legal process shouldn’t interfere with it. When the same-sex marriage will be approved socially, that means the quality of life and health benefits will increase. “If gays are ready to get married and have children, the AIDS crisis must be over!”(MJ Kaufman and Katie Miles 78).
If you are widowed in India, then you merely exist in the shadows of the society, banished ignored, and miserable. Historically, inhuman traditions like ‘widow burning’ existed in India. Widowed women had to face a lot of discrimination. Though this ritual was stopped in India during British rule still practices such as a widow with no son had to marry her husband’s brother prevailed. “In India, early law codes provided that a widow with no son had to marry her husband’s brother, in order to produce a male child to carry on his lineage”. (Coontz 46). Marriage was merely a primary vehicle for transmitting status and property. In India, women were forced to marry men chosen by their parents. The concept of child marriage existed in ancient times in India. Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that somehow girls are inferior to boys. Moreover, marriage was used to safeguard the purity of girls as soon as they reached juvenescence because people placed a high premium on virginity. “But because women could bear a child with an impure bloodline, introducing a foreign interest into a family, their sexual behavior tended to be more strictly supervised and females were subject to severe penalties for adultery or pre-marital sex. The laws and moral codes of ancient states exhorted men to watch carefully over their wives lest the seed of others be sown on your soil”. (Coontz 46) one of the negative effects of this includes the low rate of women inheriting property. The traditional gender roles state that women will be married at a certain age and move to their new household and this leads to many women not getting property from their families which they have the right to inherit by law.
When I grew up, fathers were employed out of the home and mothers were the caretakers of the household but now things are different most of the women or mothers work. Therefore, the responsibilities and duties of the household should be shared and divided equally but they aren’t divided equally. So, to overcome this difficulty one should always remember that household chores have no gender. Whenever it comes to household responsibilities, we assign the tasks unconsciously in a very traditional way. The women have to do things like washing the dishes and mopping the floor whereas man has to do more physical activities such as mowing the lawn and changing the light bulbs. Use a rotating schedule, so that everyone tries to get their hand at everything. This will prove that there is no such thing as men’s work or women’s – “it’s just all work!” Stereotyped gender roles and the construction of femininity and masculinity are the main causes of gender-based violence in most parts of the world. To get rid of this gender-based violence it is crucial that we break the shackles of gender norms and stereotypes and promote nonviolent and equal gender relations between men, women, and non-binary persons. Such change could be facilitated through various measures, such as gender-responsive early childhood education, the integration of gender equality content into the curriculum at various levels of education and scientifically based and age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education, promoting equal sharing of responsibilities in unpaid care and domestic work, including through parental leave policies and flexible working arrangements; and dismantling discriminatory stereotypes in sexual and reproductive health. It’s not easy to challenge stereotypes, but society doesn’t change if you don’t start changing yourself first.”
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