The female identity is built around the marital status of a woman. The burden of being unmarried often explains the social stigma, constant pressure to marry, questioning of personal choices, lack of family support, especially for a woman, all stemming from the deeply in-built societal expectation that a marriage is the custom and a necessary segment in life.
Being unmarried often leads to uninvited and unwanted analysis from family, friends and society. Marriage brokers will be a regular guest to your house. Regular meetings and interactions with astrologers who will give your parents different justifications for the daughter not getting married becomes a routine part of your life. Numerous matrimony sites will awaken you up daily with a message that so and so is interested in you and so and so wants to talk with you. Any calls from your relative will be incomplete without a summary of some boy whom they know or their so and so distant friend or relative or village knows.
The worst scenario is attending someone’s marriage. Trust me, whenever I have to attend any marriage, it gives me sleepless nights and, of course, nightmares!!! Leave the bride and the bridegroom, everyone will look at you with the saddest unhappiest look ever possible making you feel hopeless. These weddings feel incomplete without aunties taunting “Beta ab agla number tumhara hai”. How can I forget my Sheeba aunty? I always meet her at some wedding usually at the buffet area and even if she is busy binging on the food, she cannot digest it without taunting me “Now next buffet will be at your wedding”. Oh !, How I wish I could give it back to her?
The only aim in life of these highly educated society aunties and relatives are to get you married even if their own children are unmarried, divorcee or sitting at home after three failed marriages. Their constant nagging asking “‘aur beta, shaadi kab kar rahe ho” can trigger a Tsunami in your life! Their entire world revolves around you and only you as the central interest. You have to listen to the importance of early marriages, the consequences of late marriages and the risk of having babies later on. They will say you are looking for too much in a guy. Learn to Adjust. Once you have crossed your thirties, then you aren’t “Shaadiwala material” anymore. Your life is insignificant. The sheer pleasure we experience from them always reminds us the fact that we are getting older and our days are under counting to get married. My Hema aunty is always after me to catch hold of any guy from office. When I told her that unfortunately there are no single guys in my office, her immediate quick-witted solution was “why not catch hold of someone from your next office as your office is in a seven-floor commercial complex”. So, what am I supposed to do! Carry out a survey in each office and find out a suitable guy!
More worrying, is the sad worried faces of our parents. Wherever they go, people will ask them about your marriage. I am overdosed with such expert comments from these society aunties and relatives. Aren’t’ your parents worried? Don’t they know that it is wrong to keep an unmarried daughter at home? Is there something wrong with the daughter? Your daughter’s biological clock is ticking! Though I mostly ignore these unpleasant statements, it does take a toll on my parent’s health and social life.
Also, perception of Indian society is that Single working women have lesser responsibilities in life which is completely wrong. Everyone’s situation is different and everyone has responsibilities, someone’s status as a single person or a married person has no bearing whatsoever on whether they are a more or less responsible human being. One must not categorize people in that way. Each and every person is different.
I believe what’s written in your birth chart will not change irrespective of whatever you do. I do NOT personally believe in the religious significance of pujas for getting married, what these astrologers and so-called pundits push our already depressed parents to do, but I have still observed number of fasts, performed many Havans/ Yajnas to remove obstacles, tied countless number of sacred threads to my wrist from almost all the temples in India just for the sake of my parents as they have STILL hope and faith in these beliefs.
Dear Annoying relatives and society aunties. My Marriage Is ABSOLUTELY NOT Your Responsibility.
I personally believe if a girl is unmarried after a particular age, it is definitely because she did not get a suitable match. IT IS NOT HER FAULT. Destiny is unavoidable irrespective of the choices or actions we make. I can’t do anything if a man may or may not be destined in my life, even after trying so hard. So let it be. I don’t have any problem in getting married or not getting married but yes society has made it very difficult for me to live peacefully. Who is the society to assume that a single woman is unhappy or waiting to be completed by a Man? She is just another individual who lives a choice she has made.
A woman does not get respect and acceptance only after marriage. One earns respect by their own KARMAS. It has nothing to do with their partner. So, if I am unmarried, accept it as I am living a fulfilled life, I am financially independent and still going strong. So please do not give any significance to my marital status. As long as I have my own passions to keep me busy, I will be fine.
An unmarried woman is not a national crisis. Her life is not an invitation to pass judgments about her inability to be lovable or to malign her moral integrity. If society cannot handle your lifestyle, then ignore them, or remove them from your life all together. You deserve better people who support you and not the ones who put you down as you are different.
Let marriage not be the compulsive nudge of the society for a woman.
