Patriarchy, Matriarchy and Parenting

Marriages, once a beautiful institution that held society together, have become (very literally) domestic political battlefields!

You either have patriarchy, where the male species is adjudged to be the wiser guides of families and societies simply because they can physically overpower women (just look at the utter lack of logic in that statement!). And we have generations of children growing up in such twisted houses and communities and imbibing this distorted value system. Girl children who eventually accept being made to submit to a servile existence as their lot or face a continuous threat of violence. And "boys of the family" who learn to bask in that sense of enlightenment bestowed on them simply by the chromosomes they carry. Now they have the first unquestioned unearned right to food, the first unquestioned unearned right to education, the first unquestioned unearned right to money, to independence. And when their time comes, they have to propagate this nonsense to the next generation. Their "family" will live where they want them to, how they want them to, they will be the "heads of their families" : just like that, simply by accident of birth in being born male.

Young children are innocent, they can see the nonsense of all this. Yet, they are to respect all of this till they get cast in the same rotten mould.

Or you have matriarchy, which, to me, is the same degraded imbalance in the other direction, the other side of the same dirty coin that no longer ought to have currency in any civilized society.

Why would children respect this either? Societal imbalance is fundamentally undeserving of respect.

I have tired myself asking couples this simple question: You live together, you sleep together, you are able to perceive each other in some depth, there is intimacy, all barriers have dropped, and you can't let go of this power play, this politics? What's the need for it? It's so ugly! Just trust each other, be equals in your relationship, raise your children with that sense of equality, bring about a balanced society that is free of all this oppression, all this violence, all this anguish.

It's specially strange to be having this conversation in India. In our tradition, the wife is referred to as Ardhaangini : literally, half the husband's being. And the man immediately becomes Ardhaang : half the wife's being. Perfect equality. Perfect balance. Nay! One step further! The two become one - period! No scope for disrespect from either side. No scope of oppression from either side. That's intimacy. That's a relationship. That's walking together on the journey of life as equals. As one.

That's the starting point. Step zero. Then comes sensible, conscious, parenting directed at raising children into intellectually and emotionally mature adults capable of engaging with the world with intelligence and empathy and thinking and living independently.

Be such parents, and you would have earned your right to be respected. Else, no.