I am a 24 year old girl from a middle class family. Right from my childhood I was treated like a princess by my parents. Of course, I didn’t get everything I asked for, but all my reasonable wishes and demands were fulfilled. Most importantly, my parents never differentiated me from my elder brother except a few times. I am independent and earn, spend and save the way I want to, with occasional advice from my parents.

Now all this would be absolutely fine until I get married. But it is marriage that scares me the most at this point in my life. I know that we are much more broad-minded than what people were a few decades ago. There is still a lot more any girl expects from the society (at least that’s what I think). Now before you judge this article to be some feminist nagging about how unfair the society is, hear me out.

After being raised in a broad-minded family, where I am allowed to choose my friends and learn from my own mistakes, I will now have to modify my entire lifestyle after marriage.

It is not just the arranged marriages I am talking about, even the love marriages. Obviously, nobody would willingly marry someone if they feel they aren’t right for each other. You obviously try to make a good impression on people you meet.

How can you try and pretend your entire life? I think that is when the honeymoon phase ends and the troubles begin. While we can obviously adjust and learn to fall in love with different versions of the same person, I can only hope that I will be among those lucky people who do. For a girl, when she moves out of her place into her husband’s family, the burden only doubles. She has to accept the family as her own (even if they might not readily treat their daughter-in-law as their daughter), take good care of her husband, and manage her career (if they do allow it in the first place) along with the household chores.

I am not saying I don’t want to cook or that I can’t. But it’s the thought of cooking 3 meals a day irrespective of whether I want to or not that bothers me. I now wish I showed the same consideration towards my mom when she said she didn’t have enough patience to cook my favourite dishes. I don’t have a problem to look after his parents but would they forgive me like my parents do when I make mistakes?

I would love to do things for my husband the way he likes it but would he be patient enough to not compare me with his mother? After all nobody can pamper him the way his mom did, but even I was pampered at home. I would definitely need both time and experience in handling so many new things at once.

Would his mom whole heartedly accept me as the other important woman in his life? My opinions are respected here back at home, would they even ask me mine there? Will I still be able to take decisions about my career and not be considered selfish? Will my husband help me out with all the troublesome chores that are usually only expected from a woman? Would we manage to stay in love for the rest of our lives?

I am not cynical about marriages. It is just that unlike choosing a wrong friend, a wrong marriage would leave you scared for life.

Despite all this, I still hope and dream that I will find the right guy and a supportive family. Don’t blame me, aren’t we all in love with the idea of falling in love?

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