Nazia Kamali
The best way to live one’s life is to live with freedom.
A life that is spent doing what we want, how we want, and being happy with our choices is the one with the least number of regrets. This definition of happiness has changed the dating and marriage scenario in the present times to a great extent. Thus, relationships are viewed from a different angle by women, who now demand independence and individuality within the same ambit.
Love, partnership, the joy of sharing one’s life with another being are essential in life. Still, the baggage that it brings along, especially for women, sucks out the entire idea of ‘cozy’ from the relationship. The man moves, you move; he needs space, you give it to him, you need space; he hits back with a gut-wrenching why? His career comes before yours. His flirting with female colleagues gets a free pass, but your male friends are always under the radar of suspicion. He wants to be financially secure before becoming a father, but you are selfish for not wanting to birth a child; his needs are always to be put ahead of the girlfriend’s/wife, his demands always hold a higher place, and what if you don’t obey? Well, we all know what happens to shrews that defy…..
The more a relationship evolves, the more responsibilities it brings for women.
We all have from time to time dreamt of meeting a man who cooks, cleans, does the dishes and the laundries, takes care of the yard, loves our parents, and helps children with their school projects, but let’s be honest and count the number of men in our vicinity who can actually do that.
Go on…
Count…
How many??
Four? Five?
Ten… Really???? Introduce me to at least one of them… I, too, want a life straight out of fairy tales.
Now imagine a looming deadline, a sink full of dirty dishes, a child or children to take care of, and a man who does nothing but sit on the couch and stare at the television screen in front of him, expecting the food to be served right on time. Doesn’t it sound like the twenty-first-century thing? Well, wake up, my darling, it’s all frigging true.
I know many women living the scenario, and all they wish for is to rewind their lives to the time when they were single and carefree.
Correct me if I am wrong, but whenever I think of getting married, several scenarios pop up in my mind, which makes me question the thought altogether –
♦ I will have to change my guardian in every official document and form that I fill. From being the daughter of Mr X, I will become the wife of Mr Y, which gives the feeling of negating my entire existence before the union, rendering my life before marriage insignificant.
♦ A tired me, rushing to and from home to office while taking care of all the household chores, tending to the children, and standing in long queues to pay for the groceries.
♦ Allowing my husband to use my tired body for his pleasure without considering that all I want to do is, collapse on the bed after being churned like a machine the entire day.
♦ Getting pregnant, carrying the baby full term, in addition to doing everything that I was already doing.
♦ Being labelled by society – a man who goes to work without attending to his child behind is a responsible father working day and night to provide for his family. Still, a woman who leaves her child behind to work is ‘not fit to be a mother’. So basically, all the hard work that I did to establish my career has to go down the drain, or I will become a society labelled bad mother.
Doesn’t that sound like the sky is crashing down upon me?
Allowing myself to be optimistic, I look at the brighter side where the man I live with is an angel and shares all the responsibilities with me equally. Now the thing with such a husband or a boyfriend is that they are practically nonexistent, and other people around wouldn’t let one catch a breath once they see the man assisting in household chores. The physical exertion that he saves the wife or girlfriend from gets manifested in the form of mental stress from listening to his praises all day long – you are one lucky lady, who gets a husband like that? Our husbands never lent us a hand like that; we used to work all alone…..
So what do we do? We look for solutions, for ideas that help us retain our identity without being bogged down by the burden laid upon women by society. If it’s possible for men, why can’t it become a possibility for us too?
Staying single, being in charge of one’s own lives – eating, walking, and dressing the way however one wants instead of sacrificing the desires for men who think that there is nothing wrong with asking a woman to place them first is thus becoming the new norm.
Single by choice is a rapidly catching up phenomenon that more and more women agree with.
