Marriage not on the cards at all

Young self-sufficient women don’t see the need for a marriage. A recent study by Chaiti Sharma Biswas and Ishita Mukhopadhyay from the Indian Statistical Institute states that “In orthodox Indian society, the effect of marital status nullify the role of education on empowerment.”

The unspoken rule in the orthodox Indian society has led to the dreams of several young women being sacrificed, crushed and shattered in the past. However, with the rapidly increasing rate of young women entrepreneurs in the country, they believe that there is more to the term “Settled” than just wedlock.

Priya Jain, 33, CEO, Mishikraft said, “After a certain age, you seek for a fulfilling experience, you tend to look for growth as an individual. A marriage demands a lot of compromise and I am not willing to do that. For example in some cases men or the in-laws demand that girls quit their job in the pretext of asking the girl not to strain herself. But, this is not why parents provide the best education for their daughters. The true meaning of settling down according to me is finding a purpose in life and investing in yourself.

We are bread winners of the house, we have our own houses and basically we can provide for ourselves the only thing we expect in a man is to add to the growth and not drag us down. Marriage is all about acquiring a new family and changing ourselves to fit social standards and that’s what I do not want. I love the way I am and I do not need a man as a financial back-up.”

Young women believe that they don’t need men to provide for them, rather it is men and their families who need a woman to maintain order in the house and take care of them.

Shruti TH, 24, an artiste said, “The only thing that’s expected of a guy from the society and family is that he earns a substantial amount to provide for the family. But, a woman is expected to play several roles like a mother, daughter, cook, maid and later think about her individual growth which is usually buried deep down, somewhere under all these responsibilities. We women don’t need men to take care of us, it’s rather the other way round. Men and their parents need us women to take care of them and their needs. The only reason we empowered women want to marry is for love and not financial support or anything else. We certainly do not need them to empower us; we are educated and bold enough to take challenges in our lives. And parents must let their daughters explore their talents and capabilities to the fullest to understand that they don’t need a mere marriage to define the term ‘settled’.”

Empowered young women these days believe that they don’t need a man for babies either because adoption can help reduce the population in the country.

Gayathri Bhat K, 26, a content writer said, “I like being a strong independent woman and to be honest I am probably going to be a single mother who adopts and frankly it’s my choice isn’t it? Women don’t need to be “married” to be awesome mothers.”

Sandeep Anirudhan, a sociologist explains, “Marriage is an artificial construct! It is a product of evolution dominated by a patriarchal ensemble that is when man started possessing lands, wealth and eventually an unwelcoming result of commodifying women as possessions of men. However, in a forest tribe where people are connected to nature and do not possess any land as they live in abundance, a woman is treated with equal status, if not superior. Marriages are not very important in these communities; in fact, relationships between women and men are based on mutual consent and are flexible, and can be entered and exited by choice. There is so much we need to unlearn and relearn. Our present artificial constructs of morals and values, don’t allow us to relate to people intelligently!”