A 50/50 in Marriage
by Naima Nuren Khan
In Bangladesh, there has been numerous progressive changes in the mindset of the society. Today, a working man prefers a working woman and recognizes a marriage that stands on the contribution of both partners. Women have more decision making power, individuality, and a sense of self-actualization. Yet, there are various facets that instead of equipping women, hinders them to explore their full potential.
For the younger, more aware generation, the idea of marriage has grown to be much more progressive. They embrace a marriage that vouches for shared responsibility in emotional and financial terms. At present, young marriages consist of both partners contributing to the workforce and focus in career development.
It can be said that our society has embraced the concept of shared financial responsibility to quite an extent. Yet, the patriarchal hold withdraws men to help with household tasks or caring for children. While women are single handedly expected to care for the household responsibilities, men undergo extreme pressure to provide financial security. With gender roles strictly defined, our society is still reluctant to open their minds when it comes to the equal sharing of perceived-female and male-specific responsibilities.
Marriage is still largely what defines a woman in our society. As a result, due to lack of the required mental and physical support, many women with promising careers tend to resign from work unable to cope with both family and work life pressure. As a result, the workforce ends up with a scarcity of women in leading positions.
In a typical nuclear family, where both the parents are working, the day will end with the mother taking care of the household tasks, preparing the next days meals and caring for the children, after arriving from work.
In addition to workplace stress and household tasks being left only to the female figure, they end up working twice as hard. Evidently, while we have understood the importance of womens empowerment, we have overlooked on how to drive this empowerment.
Similarly, men are expected to the sole bread earners. The lack of sharing of responsibilities in the different spheres of life is what births and enhances power struggle and dominance. If men are expected to take charge of the household tasks, women must also share the financial burdens. One simply facilitates the other.
Our society has come a long way and it still has a long way to go. We have realized the benefits of a progressive marriage that is defined on each partners individual independence, decision making power and shared responsibility. Yet, however, sharing of responsibilities seems to be constrained in only certain aspects of a marriage.
It is time that our mindset broadens a bit more to allow a marriage that shares the emotional aspects, financial responsibilities and the duties that come along a family life. As we do so, we enable division of work in a marriage; be it emotional, financial or taking care of the household chores or the children.
A commendable fraction of the workplace is represented by women. Over the last decade, development work, better HR policies, change in societal mindset and awareness programs have all worked together to create this positive change. Yet, the fraction is a meager one and requires more women participating in the workforce.
Marriage is a relation that should not be restricting or constraining but through the partners support, it should facilitate an easier life. Hence, we need men willing and enthused to participate in perceived-female-specific responsibilities and we need working women who are share the financial burdens. As we do so, we will enable a rise in independent women contributing to the workforce and a society that does not emphasize on gender specific roles.
