Sunday, August 25, 2013

Of meddling mums and broken marriages




Interfering mothers quite often break marriages!.  They hate to lose their hold on their birds and want to clip their wings at every stage.
Let’s tackle the man’s mother.Her dearest wish is to see her son married and she takes a lot of trouble finding the right bride for him.  Once the bride enters the home, she is subjected to various restrictions.  Mum-in-law frowns on her ‘bahu’ who cuddles up to her hubby and advises her to be more discreet.
“You know how people talk!.  The other day Mausi had come in the afternoon and you were with my son in the bedroom.  Mausi was shocked!  She kept saying ‘Aaj kal ki bahuein don’t have any sharam’.  So, please don’t do things like that again”!
The poor girl had no choice but to spurn her amorous hubby’s advances next time.  This extends to outings in the evenings, mode of dress, everything.  The husband wants his wife to dress in the latest outfits, cut her hair and look glamorous and go out with him.  But what will ‘Mausi’ say or so the mother couches her own objection! This is to make sure her son does not blame her!  Soon the poor guy feels frustrated and starts admiring other well-dressed woman and blames his wife for her old-fashioned attire.
Women have this perverted tendency of not wanting to see other women happy.  In
99 % of cases, it is the female relatives who create problems in a wedding.  “Arey!  What a church mouse you have chosen for a daughter-in-law! Not even a pair of diamond earrings!”  “What a sparse collection of silver vessels”!  “No furniture!  Not even a dressing table?”
They go on and on.
They don’t realise that they are in no way affected by the bride bringing bounty with her or not.  Naturally, the mother gets upset as she feels her prestige is at stake in her circle of relatives.  Even though she herself does not aspire for much, she succumbs to the comments and starts tormenting the poor girl. 
Mothers should realise that they wield a lot of influence on their children’s psyche and channel it, rather than exploit it.  Educated bridegrooms meekly submit to the machinations of their mothers and though they don’t believe in accepting ‘dowry’ are forced to do so because the mother emotionally blackmails the son.  Feeling too weak to protest and hurt her, he slinks away to wear his sherwani.  After all, the poor boy has to stick by his mother who has sacrificed so much for him!     
Let’s not blame the men only.  If there is a demand for kerosene to burn the bride, the women are equally at fault.  They don’t want to let go the son attached to their apron string.  They want to have their daughter-in-law and eat her or burn her too!

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