Indian Society Daughter daughter-in-law indian family father-in-law double standards

If Your Daughter Does It, She's Adorable. If Your Daughter-In-Law Does It, She's A Home-Wrecker.

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*For representational purpose only.

I have a patient who just got married. I know what you're thinking- a newlywed woman is going to the doctor. That must mean some kind of "news" is underway. But I'm not an ob-gyn. And she was suffering from depression. 

When a woman undergoes an extraordinary stress in her marriage, you have the tendency to brush it off as "normal". Listen up- it's not. We normalized it because we're insensitive to women. 

One time, my patient's father-in-law and her unmarried sister-in-law were out of town. She and her husband decided to eat out. But right in the middle of their dinner, she got a call from her father-in-law who was yelling at her non-stop. He was abusive and told her she had no manners because she left her mother-in-law alone at home. Seriously- who has the right to shame people for making lifestyle choices? And how do you expect newlyweds to figure out their lives without giving them some space?

But it's these big punishments for imaginary mistakes that drove her to depression. 

Just before the lockdown started, she visited me again. By then, her sister-in-law was married and was living abroad. Of course, she's having herself an extended honeymoon, roaming with her husband here and there. Whose permission does she have to take to go out? Does it matter to her that her in-laws live by themselves?

You see, that's the sh*tty double standard we grew as a society. Your daughter does adorable things, your daughter-in-law is a home-wrecker for doing the same things. And obviously, women will never stand up for other women. Your value, power and relationship to the perceived will always determine what standard you're held to. 

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