IF YOU HAVE OPTION: LIVE INDEPENDENTLY AFTER MARRIAGE

The first salvo came the 2nd day of marriage. “Your mother doesn’t like me.”
I took it lightly. “Come on darling. I am her only son. My mother loves you as much as she does me.”
The second bombshell took a month to burst.

Why do your sisters keep sitting in my room? I also need some space. I can’t talk to my mother. The moment I pick up my mobile they begin hovering all over. The tirade turned a regular night ritual thereafter.
The household became a living hell. Everyone was always tense. We stopped eating together in the family tradition. The break was formalized within six months. The worst thing was the bitterness with which we two parted to start a separate family nucleus.

I knew who the Polonius behind the curtain was. It could not have been anyone other than my mother-in-law.
This is how my bosom friend related his tale of family woes to me one evening. He had recently started living independent of his pre-marriage family. That best brewer of guilt, the universal tormentor of conscience, the to-be-or-not-to-be syndrome, assailed him like it does all the newlyweds in our society. Could it have gone different? Yes.

The sorry saga could have been different. The parents could have done it. The society still feels a son must live with his parents. It is obligatory to look after the family by his physical presence under the same roof. We bask in the glory of family ties and joint families. We sing paeans of praises for the atmosphere a child gets growing in the company of a horde of cousins, uncles and aunts. We are still primitive in convictions when clans used to stay together to face a hostile wilderness around.

But the times have changed. The age old custom of joint family is all but extinct. Girls are now an active part of the work force. The tradition of a daughter-in-law massaging the feet of old ladies before sleeping at night seems ridiculous. The girls are mentally different now. They want an uncluttered personal space. They have pretty strong ideas of almost every facet of life from when to start a family to how to dress, when to wash hair, when argue with the husband and when to love him with abandon-undisturbed by the coughing of an old man in the background.

This is a brave new world. The faster the elders come to believe that the change is irreversible, the better. Whatever people feel about it the society will have to change. Mothers-in-law- ‘both sides’- will have to change. When done with grace the family ties will continue to be sweet.
Allow the young couples to fly the coop. Permit them to cut the umbilical cord and live a life of their own. Allow them to go away and find out their own branch to perch. Every Jane Fonda should realize that no Jennifer Lopez will now compromise with a Monster-in-law.