Growing up the topic of marriage was never to far away.
“Do this for your brother so you can do it for your husband.”
“Learn how to cook so you can do it for your husband.”
“Clean the bathroom so you can do it in your own home.”
I’d always felt like an outsider in my own home and I was constantly reminded this was not my home and I was merely a guest.
Even from an incredibly young age my mum made sure I understood that marriage was always on her mind.
“It’s good to get married young, you can mould into your husbands family,when your too old you have your own likes and dislikes, it’s not good for a women to be too independent that’s when marriages end.”
I was told this over and over and over. Basically I was told it’s best to get married young as you don’t know who you are as a person, you don’t know what you want in life, you haven’t travelled the world or gone out with friends. It was always about pleasing my future husband. His needs and his families needs were made clear to me even as a child.
I would become upset and frustrated. Is this what life is? Learning to cook and clean to then do it for the rest of my life for someone else and his family? I was made to believe this was the norm. I was commonly told that girls who don’t get married young are bad, that there’s something wrong with them, their too ‘modern’. I was told that mothers would cry because their daughters didn’t marry at their peak age of 18-23 and then no one wanted to marry them. And because they missed their peak age they are now just living at home a burden to their families.
It’s shocking to even write this but my mum would give us lectures and tips on how to keep my future husband happy.
“Make him dependent on you. Take his shoes and socks off when he comes home. Cook for him, clean for him make him so dependent on you he won’t be able to survive without you.”
It sounded to me more like slavery than being a wife. There’s a line between being loyal and respecting someone to being a slave.
When I did get married I found it incredibly difficult.
I was young, not ready to be married, conversations I had with my mum would revolve around food and recipes and dishes I had cooked for my beloved husband.
But, to be frank I didn’t do any of that.
I didn’t know what it was like to be a wife other than these stories my mum had told me. My husband at the time was in his early 20’s and didn’t really have a clue either.
But if I’m honest he wasn’t like the husbands my mum had told me about. He would pick up the hoover and clean the house. Clean the bathroom and kitchen.
He would eat whatever, sometimes I’d cook sometimes he’d make something even if it was with his limited culinary skills. He tried.
When I told him about my mums stories he would just laugh in sheer disbelief.
He really stepped up especially when I fell pregnant and got really really sick with being in the hospital so much, he wouldn’t let me do anything. It’s his fault I gained all the baby weight…
Ok we’ve had ups and downs but this is something extremely positive about him.
Growing up if we heard a husband had even washed a single cup or hoovered the house then my mum and family would say “he is controlled by his wife”.
No mum, he loves his wife. They are a unit. She is not a slave.
Simply Benish 