{"id":5875,"date":"2015-05-01T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T05:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=5875"},"modified":"2017-02-20T19:49:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T14:19:50","slug":"the-struggles-of-being-an-unmarried-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/the-struggles-of-being-an-unmarried-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"The struggles of being an unmarried woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a 26-year-old woman. Is there anything extraordinary about it? Maybe not. But there is certainly something extraordinary in being single and unmarried as a woman at the \u2018ripe age\u2019 of 26. It is an age where a woman is way \u2018past her prime\u2019. An age when her biological clock (read:a socially constructed, metaphysical, superficial clock) has started ticking. Perhaps 26 is just an abstract and random number. An unmarried woman often pricks society, as soon as she reaches a marriageable age <\/em>\u2013 something as ambiguous as the deadly biological clock. And when I say society, I am pointing at our families \u2013 the chief institution that makes up any culturally conscious society.<\/p>\n

Of course, this post is not a rant against marriage. Or one against people who are married or choose to get married. Or even against families that participate in the whole idea and institution of marriage. This post is a reflection about how much societal pricking of one\u2019s unmarried status exists even as you achieve greater heights of success and satisfaction. As an educationally qualified, happily employed, financially independent woman who is (ostensibly) in control of my life, I still cannot escape societal wrath despite this perfectly painted canvas. As a single woman who hasn\u2019t yet tasted the proverbial marital bliss, I am the odd one out. Unmarried. Uncared for. Unattended.<\/p>\n

More often than not, people think only married people have a sexual life. Interestingly and paradoxically enough, society chooses to take a deep level of interest in a person\u2019s sexual life. It is paradoxical because for a prudish as well as hypocritical society such as ours, this seems to go against its own pre-defined set of principles. Sex, as something extremely private both in the act as well as in identity, attracts the attention of everyone in the family. For those of us who are sexually inactive, marriage is the ultimate frontier to aim for and gracefully lose our virginity and live happily ever after. For those of us who are sexually active, familial pressure hovers over a woman\u2019s head and she is advised to become a wife rather than remain a girlfriend or lover. The former has social acceptance; the latter is subject to ridicule, condemnation, taunts and inevitable rumours.<\/p>\n

Even in the workplace, an individual\u2019s increment letter does not hold as much value as an individual\u2019s marriage certificate. Patriarchy manifests itself in myriad ways when it comes to successful and economically independent women who are bracketed under the broad category of unmarried: \u201cGot a promotion? Well, career can wait, marriage won\u2019t. Got an increment? That\u2019s fine but no one marries a woman who earns more than the man. You finished your PhD? Finally. You better get married; who marries an overly qualified bride?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>These responses are specific to women. The way marriage, its centrality and its grave importance is presented, one is never allowed to enjoy any other achievement without any guilt. Every time I have paused to reflect on something praiseworthy in my life, I have also been forced to embrace the stark reality of my \u2018spinsterhood\u2019.<\/p>\n

The family, a classic representative of the heteronormative social structure that we inhabit, is particularly nosey about a woman\u2019s marital or pre-marital life, chiefly because it is deeply interested in her sexual life, over which it still claims complete control. As an unmarried woman, my pre-marital life is expected to be as virginal as possible. Ideally, my family would expect me to not have a boyfriend at all or update them regularly on my dating status (if I belong to a slightly less conservative family). Having a female partner is probably out of the question. And, a live-in relationship with a partner of my choice is blasphemy.<\/p>\n

I have been, interestingly, involved in the curation and execution of a soon-to-be launched campaign against early and forced marriage that will be run by the girls at Feminist Approach to Technology<\/a> (FAT), an organization where I work, learn and unlearn from. FAT has been working on teaching photography and film-making to young girls from disadvantaged families so they can use their technical skills to run and anchor a campaign of their own, using the film that they direct and produce. These girls\u2019 realities are very different from mine: they are daughters of domestic workers, construction workers, who wake at 4 in the morning and struggle to get educated in schools and colleges. I am, on the other hand, an upper caste, middle class, literate and educated woman of the 21st century. However, what binds us together is the same society whose products we all are. It is the same pressure but a different manifestation. Our struggles as unmarried women are strikingly similar. Our greatest battles are fought inside our own homes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, I would also like to see myself married someday. To someone I truly care about and have chosen to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe in a less pressurising and more fulfilling way. But I am very much against coercion. If I am 19 and wish to get married, I have every right to do so. Just like being 26 and not wanting to get married. It might be too obvious to state this but let\u2019s reiterate the fact that no one can tell if we\u2019re ready to get married. Except ourselves. Let\u2019s respect choice. Let\u2019s bless a couple who wants to be together despite or in spite of their backgrounds. Let\u2019s celebrate individuals who are happy to be ticking the \u2018Single\/Unmarried\u2019 box on official forms. Let\u2019s break boundaries. Let\u2019s be revolutionary. Let us honour the one thing we have always denied people. Choice. Freedom. Agency. The simple right to be ourselves.<\/p>\n

A shorter, edited version of this write-up was originally published on the <\/em>author\u2019s blog<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u0907\u0938 \u0932\u0947\u0916 \u0915\u094b \u0939\u093f\u0902\u0926\u0940 \u092e\u0947\u0902 \u092a\u0922\u093c\u0928\u0947 \u0915\u0947 \u0932\u093f\u090f \u092f\u0939\u093e\u0901<\/a> \u0915\u094d\u0932\u093f\u0915 \u0915\u0930\u0947\u0902<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a 26-year-old woman. Is there anything extraordinary about it? Maybe not. But there is certainly something extraordinary in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":5877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,387,6],"tags":[25,395,396],"class_list":{"0":"post-5875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-family-and-sexuality","9":"category-theicolumn","10":"tag-sexualities","11":"tag-single","12":"tag-unmarried"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5875"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11000,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions\/11000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}