Most of you are already aware that in 30 days, I will officially have moved back home! Some time around October last year, I found myself elbow-deep in teaching, marking, and writing the first chapter of my thesis. I realised that if I wanted to finish this PhD by the end of my third year, I'd have to give up my other responsibilities. And so, it is with quite a heavy heart that I am packing my things, ending my teaching responsibilities, saying goodbye to all my friends and colleagues, and moving home to finish my thesis. But it's not all sad news - I've spent the last 2 and a half years drifting between Canada and England, never settled in one place for very long, and always missing my family. This will finally give me a chance to just be at home, without worrying about booking flights or when next I'll get to see my family and for how long. As my colleagues have already expressed to me, writing a PhD thesis can be an extremely depressing and frustrating time in one's life, and I can't think of a more uplifting, nurturing and blessed environment than my home to experience the trials and tribulations of writing up.
But aside from the thesis, I've also been thinking of something else which probably awaits me upon my return: the big M question. Because as Katrina Kaif's character says in Meri Brother Ki Dulhan (which was quite a cute Bollywood film by the way): After an Indian girl turns 25, the only question on everyone's mind is "when is she getting married?". I've witnessed so many of my girlfriends experience a similar onslaught of questioning after turning 25 (most even earlier). I've always managed to escape this because of my endless studies. If there is one thing that Indian people respect as much as the sanctity of marriage, it's education. But now that I'm coming to the end of my studies, and I've exhausted all further education options, and I'm moving back home, there will no doubt be a number of people asking 'so when are you getting married? are you seeing anyone? how old are you now? isn't it time to settle down?' ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Truthfully, I have been thinking a lot about marriage lately. In the last 12 months, five of my colleagues have announced their engagements (none to each other, but I still think they need to check the water supply in our office). Most of my friends back home are either married, engaged or in serious relationships which will soon lead to engagement. And I'm probably one out of two or three un-wed female cousins left on both sides of my family. If all your friends, colleagues and relatives decided to dye their hair purple, I'm sure eventually, you would also consider a trip to the salon. So yes, marriage is something I've considered in my long-term plan. But I do have reservations. Because we live in a society where marriages fail almost as often as they succeed, and to me, that's a big problem.
In Canada, 4 out of 10 marriages end in divorce, whilst in the US, this statistic is much higher (in fact I'm almost certain that in the US, the divorce rate is more than 50%). Either way, that's a lot more married couples divorcing than our parents' or grandparents' generation. And yet, people are still getting married all the time! Even worse, it seems that few people articulate any concern that they might be part of the 40% or 50% of marriages ending in divorce. I don't even know who I might marry one day, and the thought of divorce is a frightening one. So I did a bit of research, to try and find out how you can raise your chances of having a successful marriage. And here's a top five list - the percentages in brackets reflect how much you reduce your risk of divorce by:
1) If you have a university education (13%)
2) If your annual income is more than US$50,000 (30%)
3) If you have strong religious beliefs (14%)
4) If your parents are happy in their marriage (14%)
5) If you marry AFTER the age of 25 (24%)
(Taken from 'The State of Our Unions' by Barbara Whitehead and David Popenoe)
I should probably clarify first off that these statistics are based on American data, so I'm being a bit presumptuous by applying them to my Canadian and British experiences. But perhaps we can all agree that regardless of the exact percentage, these five points are most likely all positively correlated with reduced risk of divorce in the western world. There is a lot to say about each of these factors, but what I find most interesting in this list are points 2 and 5. Generally speaking in the South Asian community, women who get married after the age of 25 and women who continue working and successfully earning money after they get married (and ESPECIALLY after they have children) are both seen as women who make 'poor life choices' also known as PLCs. But according to this data, getting married after 25 and ensuring that you are earning what I would consider a reasonable salary, cuts your risk of divorce in HALF (in fact slightly more than half if you're following the percentages closely).
But here's another problem with our dearest community: thinking that the women who aren't getting married by a certain 'desirable' age are somehow making an active choice not to. A good friend of mine and fellow Master's alumna who shares my age has spent the past two years fighting an uphill battle with her mother and other female relatives. Nearly every week, one of them calls her home, asking why she isn't married yet. What's worse, her own mother has told her that she's getting too old now to be picky, and just has to marry 'whatever comes along' or else soon enough, she will be facing a lifetime of permanent single status. Let me just clarify that my friend does want to get married, and is making every effort to find the 'right' person. She's joined Muslim dating sites, and met several potential partners, but she just hasn't found someone who appreciates her lovely personality the way they should. Because whilst South Asian girls raised in the west were taught to imbibe the qualities of a 'good Muslim/Hindu/Sikh/Catholic girl' they were also taught to be free thinking agents, to be strong, educated, independent and successful. And this perfectly describes my friend and most of my South Asian girlfriends: they are deeply religious and spiritual young women who are unashamedly smart and successful.
Why can't these women find suitable partners? Clearly, since there is such an endless pool of men to choose from, it HAS to be because the women are too picky! Yes, all this education has gone to their heads and now they think they're too good for so-and-so's son. No. That's not the problem. The problem is that the average South Asian woman today knows how to manage her home and her finances, whereas the average South Asian man can only do one of those things. We raised our girls to balance on this tightrope between traditional femininity and modern womanhood, but few have raised their boys in a similar fashion. Yes, we do have an endless pool of men who are smart and successful, but they lack the emotional toolkit and sense of modernity they require to really 'fit' with the women of today. Returning to my friend's situation, if she expresses a desire to keep her surname after marriage or return to work after having children, it doesn't matter how good of a Muslim she is, suddenly her behaviour is rendered inexcusable, or what most guys would call 'a turn-off'. And that's because at no point in these young men's lives did their parents teach them the importance of learning how to cook or how to express their feelings. They were raised with a very ill and narrowly defined version of what masculinity means. And when you threaten to take that away from them, they lack the emotional intelligence to deal with it. I also strongly believe that this is linked to the high levels of alcoholism amongst South Asian men - who often turn to a bottle because they are unable to fully express themselves otherwise. Again, this is a phenomenon that gets largely neglected because as South Asians, we are so terrified of admitting our faults to The Community.
But rather than consider the disparities in how we raise our boys and girls, the South Asian community finds it much easier to do what they've always done: blame the woman. And I can already envision the number of people reading this right now who completely disagree with my assessment, and who know of a number of handsome, educated, young South Asian men who are emotionally intelligent and as savvy in the workplace as they are in the home. Men who have been raised to respect women, respect their choices, and respect their equal right to the same opportunities as men.
In which case please feel free to forward their contact details so my single friends and I can investigate...
