Live-in Agreements a Soultion?
Have we ever thought why in our country we have
increasing number of domestic violence cases? Easy preys were the non-working
housewives from the middle class households were reportedly being thrown into
distress by their respective spouse or in-laws.
One
of the prime reasons is and was dowry-related incidents - This was a
'commonplace' during early days of pre and pro independence where giving or
getting dowry was not treated 'weird' until Nineties when grooms and their
folks found well-educated and working women of substance with clear views on
their life who could tell the prospective in-laws, on their face, with due
respect - 'sorry, we are not interested' or with ease 'thanks for coming by,
you may find another girl' or in a little rude way 'we're sure we could find a
groom from a better-cultured family'. But sad to say that the dowry system did
not get obsolete with revolutionary twenty first century, but much better
versions came out - 'gold feast is better treat', 'groom's pocket money is
honey', 'no-car-no-future', 'real-estate-property-in-exchange' - and inventions
of many more versions are under way.
Another
reason is very much cultural - in some parts of the world, husbands are treated
next to God, which was exploited by the husbands themselves and in turn this
had become a curse for the women. Why to treat the husband like God? At
least at the educated and working class women's level, this doesn’t seem to be
the case – they are even capable of getting the kitchen work done by their
husbands. When they teach children, husbands have to get the kitchen act going.
Or their next excuse will be, he is better at cleaning, quality is better. They
are even good at doing a bad quality job frequently in quite a convincing way,
though deliberately, so that husbands, for cleanliness sake, take up the job
and it will be theirs forever - After all they have to sleep with them in the
night! However this is limited mostly to nuclear families in big Metros and not
the joint families in mid-town or rural areas.
This is where "Live-in" comes into the
show. If India is not in a race to who-will-cross-the-the-two-billion-population-mark-first'
with China, then 'Live-in-agreements' should be legalized so that women get
equal importance in a modern-day relationship – which is almost similar
to a marriage but without the traditional 'the-boy-gets-girl's-hands-from-her-father'
or priests asking various questions to the 'probable couples'
'are-you-ready-to-live-with-him-forever' or
'will-you-feed-her-though-you-did-not-eat' or else
will-you-clothe-her-though-you-did-not' - to a formal 'shake-hand' (which would
be appropriate in the internet-era language) and saying
'let's-get-into-a-relationship-with-equal-rights'; or 'let's-have-joint-bank-accounts-even-though-I-do-not-work' and all other
additional perks that comes mostly with the first few years or months of marriage
which gradually fades into oblivion; or
'please-note-you-have-no-birthrights-to-beat-me'; or
never-take-advantage-of-my-prone-to-weaken-bones-or-heart' and most importantly
'I-too-am-capable-of dumping-you-in-case-of-infidelity.
The first question arises in everyone's mind is
that what if a child is born out of this relationship? Answer is, these clauses
should be integral part of the agreement so that the children are not suffered
in the case of their wise-parents' 'we-challenge-convention' decisions. Second
question should be 'what-about-our-rich-heritage, culture and future'? At least
from the top creamy level, we should start some revolution – to control
population. Otherwise the upcoming children would suffer in this cut-throat
competitive world. They will do anything to come up in life, for a high-flying
career, a cozy government job or to achieve their dreams which would not only
mean increase in corruption, which is already at the optimum level, but they
might as well turn into criminals in quest of existence. If eight out of ten
children think that they have to become engineers or doctors, and they have to
spend multiple millions to acquire a seat, think about the kind of life-saving
doctors or the quality of engineers we will produce who would destruct earth's
surface and its solid inner core with unnatural structures and artificial
islands. Bachelor degree would be the minimum qualifications for a blue collar
job.
Think about it. Is it really worth strictly
following the age-old conventions? When you are a child, your job is to
eat and study well. After about twenty-five years of studies, then earn a
well-respected job; after a few years, then marry from a progressive family;
after few months of marriage produce children – if not, then your life is
incomplete. Even the people who have no relation with you, start advising you.
Chuck this theory and practice!
If marriage is built around tradition, social
status and family union, live-in is built with mutual respect between
partners. It's like a 'life-long-engaged-state', which is the best
phase of a usual relation that probably last till the first few honeymoon
months. As we know men are at their loyal best from engagement till marriage;
and only after marriage they feel that now the girls are in our possession, our
right, and they are liable to listen to us, if they don’t listen, we have the
right to tackle them. Just to avoid getting the tag of 'divorcee' or for the
sake of their children and folks around, many of them hang on to their marriage
and plunge into the life-long dilemma. Live-in break-up shouldn’t be as dreadful
as divorce or legally noodled; it should be as easy as changing a job for
better prospects with a mere one month notice, except for the ones with
children.
Another fear is that a girl out of
'live-in-break-up' may not be accepted by the society and may find it difficult
to find a second innings – another such live-in companion in future or if she
turns against live-in concept and return to the conventional marriage - the
society may not agree to it or will turn fierce against her or to single her
out negatively. But attitude matters here! Girls can not be dependent any
longer, she has to have firm view on how to shape her own life up, make her own
decisions, have the guts to ignore the eavesdroppers and be even prepared to
fight against them verbally or physically. And she can't be ignorant on her
looks, figure and attitude – in short she has to maintain herself well and remain healthy - certainly
no more 'Monday-fasting'!
If we are here to change something (read domestic violence), we have to
obviously work hard towards it – No Solution without Revolution!
Adwin Kris
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