Every newly married girl should do...

Observations made after watching young women fall into the entrap of considering marriage a life event that requires an entire refurbish of life. Yes, marriage is one of the more important things that most of us will get into during our lives, and yes, love and companionship are important, but not at the cost of losing one’s self. Yes, when two people live together, workarounds are needed on many things, but fine-tuning need not be a woman’s mantra alone.

Why are the days instantaneously post your marriage important? Because they set expectations. Of what you will do, and will not do. Of how you look ahead to be treated, and how you will treat others. Young women are often told that if they bend in the beginning, others will come around as time goes on. In my experience, this doesn’t happen – or – it takes too much time to happen. So, for young women who believe they are adults who’re owed the respect owed to all adults, here is my list of things every newly married Indian woman should do:

• Call your husband by his name. Startling as this may sound to some of you, I’m routinely coming across young Indian women who will not call the husband by his name, especially in the case of arranged marriages, but I’ve also seen this in love marriages where the spouses were classmates or colleagues pre-marriage. Shyness, tradition, deference to custom, call it what you will – I believe this is one unhealthy habit we have to drop.
• Keep your job: Young Indian women, even those already earning, are often encouraged to leave their jobs, if only for a short while, because they are resettling in a new place, or just to ‘adjust with the in-laws’. Big mistake. Given the economy, it’s always easier to find a job when you have one in hand. Plus, when you are staying at home post marriage, people start looking at you as a homemaker and before you know it, you’ll be signed up for religious trips, having visitors at odd hours ‘to see the new bride’ and roped in for multiple other ‘family obligations’. Not that there is anything wrong with being a homemaker, but if you want to go out to work, don’t get into that ensnare. Unless you are moving to a new place where you can’t find jobs until you are in the flesh there, don’t quit your job. Somehow, you feel stronger in a new relationship if you have your own money.
• Stay in touch with your friends: Yes, the newness of marriage can be exciting, but don't drop your friends. The things you had in common with them before marriage still exist, don’t they? Plus, every woman needs a sounding board other than her husband.
•  Make new friends: This is especially for women who move cities/countries post marriage. Take the effort to make some new friends – even if they are not your soul mates (yet), it helps to have someone to talk to, at work, in your neighborhood – or if these don’t work for you, join an activity that interests you. You think you’ll never be that woman, but horror stories abound of women caught in new countries, abused and isolated. Even if your marriage is hunky-dory, depression is a real thing for a woman grappling with a number of unknowns.
• Stay in touch with your parents: This should not even need saying, but in a country where many families have the paraya dhan concept internalized, women are often discouraged from calling/visiting their parents post marriage. Sometimes this is done perceptibly, sometimes slyly, in a kind of allusion that your ‘new family’ ought to be more imperative.
• Put your feet up: A friend of mine was once chastised for putting her feet up at her in-laws’ place – literally. I don’t necessarily mean it literarily, but remember to put your feet up – sometimes we internalize the fiction that respect comes from running around like a chicken with no head. It doesn’t. You’re as entitled to rest as any other member of the family, which brings me to.
• Don’t own the housework: Even in nuclear households, we see women quickening to take up all the chores at home. Right in the early days, don’t. If your husband doesn’t know to do anything (which is entirely possible, considering the way most Indian boys are brought up), talk to him about why this is important to you, and why he needs to learn. If the house is chaotic, let it be, and it’s quite possible the other person will start picking up. Don’t make the housework ‘your thing’ (unless you are the sort of person who enjoys doing housework for its own sake!)
• Be yourself: Be the best version of you that you can be, but be yourself. Don’t change for anyone like turning into a vegetarian or so after marriage….do what you like. If you are an atheist, don’t suddenly become the puja-paath doing good girl. The fiction becomes harder to break as time goes on. You can be respectful of differences without being different.
• Don’t tolerate violence:  I know  woman will go to any extreme to preserve a relationship, however abusive & cruel it is which is wrong the moment your husband or anyone from your in-laws raises your hand the best thing to do is to take action then itself so that it is never repeated again. Don’t give another chance if there's abuse, inform your family. Even if it's small. Because all small abuse gets huge.
• Dealing with Greedy husband and in-laws: Communicate your values to your in-laws& husband. All of your values and to all of your in-laws. And still if they make numerous demands after marriage report to your parents and the mediator who fixed this marriage as greediness never goes away it goes on multiplying with time its one aspect which no one can change and somewhere our Indian marriage system is responsible for it. These things need to be cleared before marriage so that you don’t get bolts from the blue later.

Rab Rakha!!!!!