If you are a woman looking to tie the knot- take up a low-paying job!!!!!!

An edited version of this blog was published on 5th September , 2013 in Lip-

http://lipmag.com/opinion/women-in-india-and-china-looking-to-marry-are-forced-to-take-up-low-paying-jobs/




As bizarre as it may sound, it turns out that being well educated and financially sound works ‘against’ women in countries like India and China. It seems to have become a mammoth task for urban, well qualified and highly paid Chinese women to find suitable life partners. According to official statistics, one third of such women in their late 20s and 30s in China are single and actively looking for potential mates. Preposterously, there is a special term 'shengnu’ coined for such women. In china and India alike, there is a cultural preference for the man to be above his wife in terms of age, height, income, education etc besides other things. On a scale of A to D, A being the highest socio-economic ranking and D being the lowest, Class A men want to marry class B women, class B men want to marry class C women and so on.

Thus it turns out that it becomes increasingly difficult for class A women to find a suitable mate.

Of course class D men also share the same plight.

The only option left is for these residual classes to inter marry-, which seems next to impossible due to cultural and social biases. A woman earning more than her man, and bringing food to the table is considered ‘oh so demeaning’ for the quintessential male ego. Of course, another fact remaining that, ‘A class’ women themselves want to marry someone who matches up to them in most aspects if not all!

Traditional gender roles are so deep rooted in the social fabric of these countries, that men still cant tolerate women wearing the pants in a relationship.

If a woman in any case turns out to be more capable than her husband, she is expected to forgo her work and aspirations for the sake of her husband’s ego and domestic prosperity. Young Indian girls grow up learning and believing that they should never supersede their husbands, and if  need be, step down in order to allow their spouse to take charge. 

Many young urban educated Indian men are actively seeking non-working wives. When asked why, some say-

"Who will take care of the household?"

We ask, "what if she can juggle both effectively?"

Then the patriarchal mindset comes to the fore and pat comes the reply-

"What if she starts earning more than me? I don't want to be dictated terms to!!!"

I know of a couple- where the husband is retired and not earning, while the wife is doing a job and thus running the household. Yet she, like a ‘dutiful wife’, deposits her salary in her husband’s account every month, and makes the husband pay all the bills, so as to not hurt his male ego, and to keep his social grace and dignity intact. If you come to think of it, it is rather very generous of the wife (meaning she adores and respects her husband). But she also partly does it, to conform to the social norms and family expectations.

Working mothers and stay- at -home -fathers (a concept very common to the Western world) is something that the we cannot possibly comprehend and adopt in a long-long time to come. In urban India and China, where gender roles are gradually diluting, and women and men are working at par in most sectors, why on earth are our societies’ so regressive and rigid? Why do they vehemently refuse to acclimatize to changing times? Why are women of all classes and backgrounds, still expected to be subservient to their husbands?

I am not suggesting gender role reversal here, but just a healthy relationship of mutually shared responsibilities, where both men and women contribute equally to the family income as well as domestic/household chores.