And before I could understand my beauty, my traditional values tied me to a new journey that was more difficult than her values itself. Marriage at eleven is nothing more than an unpaid maid at your in-laws.
Every year I grew, my womb multipled a new member to our family crowd’, before I could make a place for my own.
With ceaseless tedious work of household and bearing many children before I could complete my twenty, seemed like I have lost my youth in the ugliness of fatigue and deformity of my body and soul.
Wisemen says,” You are woman and that’s the power to commit all challenges”.
It always happens that, the tough time take us for granted.
A woman can fast for days and can still breastfeed her child to bring her back to life. A woman has the power of perseverance to accept her spouse with someone else. A woman can break her bones to satisfy the limitless expectations of her in-laws. A woman can mould herself into clay to take the new formation in her marriage. A woman has the power of acceptance to leave all her emotional ties with her family.
If she has given you so much, then Why, little respect that she desires, becomes unacceptable.
‘He comes drunk and drugged, pulls me out from my bed. I ask him to be soft, our children are asleep. That hardly did matter, he slapped me, used his belt to hit me multiple times, I begged for forgiveness. I really didn’t know the reason why I asked pardon and neither the reason why he treated on me like an animal. He stripped me off, he threw me in the floor like, anyone throws off garbage. He pounced on me like a beast and hurt me all over. I cried, I murmured low, “I’m your wife, please have mercy.”
He hardly could see my pain. I was raped again.
After minutes, he pushed me far and slept in peace. My sore body searched for shelter, wrapped myself in a cloth, stepped feebly towards my children, sobbed my heart out and hugged my three months baby. Yes I was too weak for that night. My dress soaked in blood. Yet the outside air should not be aware of this dreadful night. A woman can never disrespect her man.
It was for her one of the normal nights. She caged her protest. She hid her wound that cut through her heart. Her demand was respect that she had lost already in her wedding night.
Next day, everything was perfect. I went out to clean houses to earn living for my family, did the usual scheduled work for my in-laws, provided abundant love to my children. And did wait for the night again, to be beaten up by someone I didn’t deserve.
Yes I am a woman, who has the stamina to accept all odds. But I deserve respect, I worth love, my body needs passion but not lust that cripples my soul.
My mother is a woman too, then how could she disapprove a better life for me. How could she tie me in marriage even when I was not a teen. How did my mother-in-law accept all torture done by her son. Why did my husband ask me a boy child, that it took me to overcome six labors at the age of 20. Why is society so ok, with the marital rape. Why is it an obligation to satisfy a man and completely ignore the wish of his spouse.
It’s not a sole story, I feel there are many like me. If only we could cry our hearts to someone and ask to give us the Right of Respect, Right of Existence, Right of Emotions, Right of Honour.
Many countries has registered marital rape as a criminal offence under the law system. But India is not one of them. The myth of the ‘wifely duty’ and the ‘conjugal right’has become an obssessive right of men in India.
Everything is legal by the following sentence:
Section 375, the provision of rape in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has echoing very archaic sentiments, mentioned as its exception clause- “Sexual intercourse by man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape.”
The demand of woman is very little. Respect, respect and respect are the only criteria she needs, to make a beautiful family ahead. A little respect, ornaments her with compliments and appreciation. Do not squeeze out her soul. Her body is just a physic, do not wound her so deep that it might get difficult to arrange the scattered broken soul.
It is believed that women in India are 40% more likely to experience rape from their husband than by a stranger.
And the irony is, A woman expects shelter and security from such an individual who takes the privilege to wreck and abuse her soul to dust.
In suburbs 40% of woman get married before they are 18.
And it’s the filthy parents of the innocent minor who proves to be the reason behind the disaster of a Spousal Despoil.
“Fear not your power
But fear the evil that begets power in you”