*Syllables that echo from my Journal’s Bosom* (5/5): Do women ‘need’ to be financially independent?
Date: 08.04.24, 08.55 am
Place: KSR Bengaluru Railway Station
I reached the station and boarded my train to Mysuru.
The adjacent berth is a couple from Kerala, who have been traveling overnight. I briefly spoke with them until I was comfortable in my seat. A regular couple from a middle-class Indian family. The guy is a finance professional and the woman is a homemaker, in the later stages of her pregnancy. She has a nice tattoo of her husband’s name on her wrist.
I came running a long way to catch the train. I feel quite hungry. So, I started having the breakfast I just bought at the station. Meanwhile every 2 minutes, a food vendor is passing by.
The woman looks at them with the excitement to eat.
After 2 of them passed by, she finally asks the third one. “What’s the price?”, she said.
“Thirty rupees, madam,” the vendor replied.
“Thirty for two?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Oh, that seems a little expensive,” she seems hesitant. “Okay, give it to me then.”
While I am observing this, the husband intervenes.
“No, no. It is too overpriced. Hold on a bit more. We’ll get down in two hours.”
The woman looks at her husband but doesn’t say anything.
After that, she stops 2–3 more vendors to ask for the price. But everyone is offering the same deal. So, she just stays silent, as she starts looking outside the window unhappily.
I get a bitter feeling to see the way this man is treating his wife who is soon about to deliver their baby. A pang of discomfort shoots through my body. I wish I could intervene and speak something. But I want to be respectful of their personal space.
By this time, my food is also finished. So, I cannot even offer that.
Nonetheless, it is not pleasant to be a witness to this.
I start wondering… had she been earning herself too, would she have gone ahead with this purchase? After all, you have been traveling overnight, and are hungry and it is food, right?
With this, I get a flashback of all my conversations with a few family members, distant relatives (and even some friends). “Why do you need to be bothered to excel in your career? Get married and let the husband take care of everything.”
A woman’s financial independence is still sadly treated with lower respect than it deserves in our society.
While I feel helpless, I start typing this to cope and vent out.
I am left with the question- would that woman make that purchase if it was her own money? Should I have intervened between the two of them? I might have offered to buy it for her if he was not there. I am just asking myself all this and getting lost in a chain of thoughts.
I am careful enough to not be judgemental or answer questions about anyone else’s situation. So, I should not bash the man immediately and call him a bad husband. He might be taking good care of his wife in many other areas, and might not be very mindful of this particular action.
However, I do feel that if I were a financially independent woman in a similar situation, I would not have let anyone decide things for me singlehandedly. Basic things like buying a food item…
This is where the issue lies. It is not about questioning a man’s ability to be a provider and cover expenses for two people. It is not about rising inflation or prices for things and food items either. It is about these seemingly tiny decisions that impact our daily lives as women.
The woman, if earning, could have still not made that purchase. It may be out of their budget as a family. I would have understood & respected that because it would have been her decision. But it was not. And that is where the problem is…
This is why we are still talking about it in the 21st century. I strongly believe that women should be financially independent, of their families and their husbands!
