Thursday, August 11, 2022

Biography 145: Decision on marriage


[From my own observation and thinking]

When a girl started thinking about marriage, from the school level, I had some different thoughts. 

I have observed many married couples. And all of them looked very happy at first sight. But if you watch them deeply or spend some time with them a little longer, you will see the black side of their relationship. And that made me think if no woman is happy with marriage then why should I go for it?

I always tried to stay away from cooking. I have seen how difficult it was for women. Traditionally in Bangladesh kitchen was built in a small room. No good air flowing in that room, because they needed to keep the fire on properly, and no comfortable furniture in there, because women will use it, our society didn't think about their comforts. No fan, No AC (not even they think about it). It's a very hot place and if you know how Bangladeshi foods are made, they took a very long time for both preparation and cook. A woman has to spend most of her daily time in the kitchen. And that was the second poor room in the house. First is the washroom.

[Both the kitchen and washroom system is changing in the Bangladeshi lifestyle. Because of media, people take kitchen beautification seriously and wealthy families make their kitchen very well technology. Some men started cooking too. But mostly still needed to fix. Thought about women's position in life, are almost the same.] 

I have seen men use to say, women should be in the kitchen. Like that is one of the worse places in the house, and a woman should stay there. My mind didn't accept it. I started avoiding learning cooking. If I don't know it well, no one will want me to stay over there. That's the logic. My mom and other female family members say, no matter how much you study, no matter how big an officer you become, you have to go to the kitchen (Like a punishment room). From deep inside I said no. Then I better not get married, I am not marriage material. Let's keep boys out of my life.

In school I have seen girls becoming interested in boys, they are looking for the perfect one. I didn't know any interest in their issues. Then in college, many girls had boyfriends, and they use to run away from college, sometimes from home for their met. I have no problem with that. Your life, enjoy the way you want to. I am not getting married, I don't want to play with any boy's mind or body. I better not concentrate on these, and I didn't.

My university life was very cheerful and funny without boys. That doesn't mean I didn't encourage my friends to have a boyfriend. I gave all my support to their loved on. 

Sometimes people used my name to make their path clear, like if they said, Shahana is going over there too, all parents use to give permission to go to that place. I have a lot of trust in my life, and Allah knows, I never break those.

I told my friends, don't let your parent ask me anything because then I will tell them the truth.

The way it sounds, my no boys in life isn't that easy. As I always avoided boys, I didn't learn how to make myself look better, I mean to put on makeup, and dress up, I never bother about that. Just did whatever made me comfortable and feel better.

I didn't learn how to make a man happy, even didn't know how to do sex. Because I never discuss it with anyone, never curious enough to check online (the Internet wasn't available at my young age)

My family, relatives and friends put me under lots of pressure to get married. Staying single is not a very common thing in our society.

To save myself, I had to put lots of excuses. Like before completion of my study and getting into a job I can't marry, This man is from that district, and will not be a good match for a girl from Dhaka, doesn't have hair, is too wealthy, has bad earnings, not enough tall, put a ring on my finger which looked like an engagement ring, change paths to go somewhere so that who were waiting on the road don't get to see me and many more.

If any of my friends brought any relation, I had to threaten them to stop this, or I have to break up my friendship.

But emotional pressure became very difficult for me to tolerate. Deep inside I am a human too. I gave my younger sister marriage before me. All relatives and known people made a very bad impression about it on my mom, like how could she do it with me and she passes those to me.

And some boys put good logic and emotional pressure on me that make me think maybe I could come up with something in the middle. Life will give me trouble whether I get married or not. So, to make my family happy, why don't I get married to someone, for something good? Like who needed to marry for something too. It could be financial, religious (When someone converted and don't get any girl) or any other help. Either way, no man will put effort to make me happy. So, let's help someone and tolerate a miserable marriage life for the family and society. I least from my marriage something good will be achieved.

And I wanted to be a mother too. That is the best gift I got from my marriage.

Though deep inside my heart, there is a word "UNLESS". That's why sometimes I believed in some men that they might love me. But with time they proved, no, they actually don't or never did.

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