MettiOli - Changing Tunes of Indian Bride

MettiOli(sound from a silver ring worn on finger in both legs by brides during marriage) was a famous mega serial broadcasted in SUNTV Network for over 2 years. It revolves around the marital life of five sisters belonging to middle class family. The serial nicely portrays the struggles, differences, ego clashes, morality, financial independence of women, dominance of men and their struggle to gain equal rights from their their spouse.

You may ask why do u choose this name for this topic..............and what u are going to discuss......Lets start with my story about a Hindu Tamil bachelor working out in an Indian SW company in Chennai with a decent salary, as it is right time to tie the knot his parents started to search for a right bride to spend rest of his life as better half. They asked his preference of the bride, which he responded back by saying any working women in decent job is preferred. As none of his relatives have such a girl meeting the preference, his parents began to registering in marriage Bureaus and Agencies and started their great bride hunt. His parents thought that the whole process will be relatively easy since their son is employed in decent company, hence will be most sought after in marriage market.

But reality was something different when they began to visit marriage Bureau's one after another. The first shocking thing was most of employed women were only willing to get married after the age of 26 or so, which is equal to their son's age. And second most Brides were expecting many things from bridegroom and his family. Gone are the days when bridegroom takes the center stage and demands many things from bride and their family. The demands like expertise in cooking, singing, dancing and even monetary gains which used to be mocked in yesteryear Tamil films were all vanished in thin air.

Now bride is demanding unimaginable things from his future spouse and in-laws like freedom, financial independence, family responsibility, right to express their own views, decision making without dependence, carrier choice after marriage, and foremost not to treat them as property. Education and Employment have changed thinking of women, who were previously dependent on their family and spouse for every thing. They have started to choose what they want, decide what they planned and demand what are due to them with out fear or worry which changed the atmosphere top to bottom.

Now brides were not interested to simply carry the home maker or house wife tag whose sole purpose is to take care home and children. On the contrary they are most interested mainly in climbing the corporate ladder and feel recognized in their respective career. Now family responsibility have taken back stage and even delaying their motherhood and present day Indian women are ready to shed their homely tag to make a name in the market place and compete with men. They are also ready to move away from the age old myths regarding women are meant only for maintaining and upholding the values of birth family and in-law family, and they should follow the wishes of elders for every thing.

Now many true incidents were emerging in media and internet about brides expecting from their future partners. Now they are selecting their partners after lot of tests and filters, and even reject them for reasons like which may be considered silly by male. They even go at length expecting their hubbies to be broadminded who never asks questions about their professional friendship, but at the same time they were expected to maintain a distance from other girls(Possessive attitude). They also wants complete control of financial accounts belonging to their spouse in their hands as well.

But one must think that Husband and Wife relationship is a two way process, where both cooperates and understand each other and work together for mutual happiness. Demanding and expecting too much from the other side will put lot of strain in the relationship and the tussle will lead to great consequences and misery. Employed women demanding their proper share in every thin is good but they must also understand that both must adjust and sacrifice for the sale of others. If the same scenario continues India will also join the ranks of US, where more than 50% of women want to stay single and not interested to bear children. This has created a lot of controversy and problems to the US government and they are even debating about Taxing more for people who live single or DINK couples (Double Income No Kids). And whereas children belonging to employed parents who were lacking good parental care tend to be more weak on studies and other activities.


To be continued........

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