Success in Marriage

The truth is that the in-laws’ house is a place where one learns the secret of living. It is only when the girl is no longer under the protective cover of her parents that the facts unravel. Then the reality of the in-laws’ home makes the parental home seem like an illusory world. Any girl who fails to learn this secret is bound to have an unsatisfactory married life, while the girl who comes to terms with reality can look forward to an untrammelled life of wedded bliss. THE JOINT FAMILY These days girls consider living in a joint family a problem. They would much rather live elsewhere with their husbands. Educated girls in particular try to convince their husbands that they, as a couple, should live separately after marriage. On the face of it, this appears to be a good idea. But often the initial charm wears off, and they feel that their situation is worse than if they had opted for the joint family system. I have seen many girls who managed to wean their husbands away from their parents. But then after living alone for some time, life became so burdensome for them that it seemed little better than a treadmill. In a joint family, a woman makes only psychological sacrifices, whereas in a nuclear family it is her whole existence which is sacrificed. The latter is much more difficult than the former. Making an assessment of the woman’s role in western society, Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Middle-class woman acquired education and a chance at a career at the very time she lost her domestic servants and the unpaid household help of relatives living in the old, large family; she had to become either a household drudge or carry the intolerably heavy load of two simultaneous fulltime jobs.”1 It is because girls are upset by certain unpleasant aspects of joint family living that they opt for living alone with their husbands. Such decisions are emotional. If only they worked half as hard in the joint family situation as they did when living alone with their husbands, their lives could be considerably more comfortable and convenient. Life is never free from troubles. It is only by handling it intelligently that we can lessen them. Living with others certainly has its problems, but they are far fewer than one experiences when living separately. Wisdom lies in opting for the easier course. MENTAL WORRIES What can become a major domestic problem is the presence of step­children. The very existence of children from a previous wife can cause such estrangement of the husband and his new wife, that it can lead to the ruination of the family. It is natural for a woman to love her own child, and as soon as she becomes a mother, her whole attention is focussed on the new­born baby. This is the be-ginning of the problem. The children of the previous wife start to feel they no longer have any place in their own home.