Double-Edged Sword

Another befuddling facet of being Bengali and unmarried is perfectly captured in the following story told by a dear friend : She says that when she was single aunties would appraise her disapprovingly on her appearance and garb soley based on her unmarried label. However, once, she was married, those very aunties would proclaim and extol her regardless of her appearance and costume. The underlying message is that her married status exalted her for being dismissed or disapproved by her elder peers. Furthermore, this simple story also appropriately displays the discrimination faced by younger females, especially younger single/unmarried females, at the hands of their older foils.

It is quite common for a young female to be inundated by questions regarding her single-ness and forseeable plans on getting married soon. That question is at once Bengali in its roots and germination. In our culture, it is permissible to openly and covertly question and refute the rationale of remaining single. Unmarried women eager to remain in that state of unattachment is seen akin to sinners. An hyperbolic statement, some may conclude. But more often than not, the questioners are the elder females or matriarchs who at once castigate their younger subjects on their apparent follies and foolhardiness. The disinclination of getting married is at once met with stern reprisals and heavy doses of Bengali sensibility and respectability.

But the fact of the matter remains that younger females are more discriminated by the very female members that should instead be championing their abilities and determination to pave their own identities. Bangladeshi females have come a long way from our parents and grandparents generations where the bulk of the females were expected to smoothly fit into the square pegs of nurturing mothers and dutiful wives. Now we have numerous females superbly juggling the roles of mother, wife, socialite, business partner, breadearner, nurturer, PTA member etc. However, apparently, some of these very females are in turn dissuading their younger counterparts to shy away from balancing multifarious roles unless the wife label is clinched foremost. Thus, it seems Bangladeshi females, at least the unmarried ones, are incapable of accomplishing most feats unless they are promptly betrothed.

Have we indeed placed a high and covetous price on being married upon our race?