What is in a name?

I grew up imagining a very traditional world for myself. You must be thinking, what the hell does that even mean? I imagined my parents finding a suitable husband for me, one who would then court me for some time, where we fell in love and got married according to our families’ wishes. I was going to be an equal in this partnership of marriage, but stay home and raise children, cook and clean and not speak my husband’s name. Recently, I visited a friend’s home with my family and at the end of the evening my friend said to me, “Purvinder, I am having a hard time remembering your family’s names and then you refer to them as ‘my husband, son and daughter.’” This comment got my wheels turning, why the heck don't I call my husband by his name, especially if we are supposedly equals in this marriage? My mother never calls my dad by his name, so I just blindly followed and thought that it was the cool thing to do!

When I chose not to say my husband’s name out loud in front of others, even though he never asked it of me, I automatically made him the higher power in our marriage. I grew up watching the Hindu epics of Ramayan, Mahabharat and Lord Krishna. We were watching these all year, when one finished my dad would put on another! This gave us insight to the wonderfully rich culture we come from, which is great gift from our father. There were, however, subliminal messages on how one should behave according to their gender. In each and every one of them, husbands are referred to as ‘swami,’ which means master or prince. Husbands, weather they were royalty or poor, called their wives by name. With this example, wives have been slaves since the beginning of time. Is this really the way we want to keep on moving? I chose no. It is not about anything but self respect for me. I believe men and women are equal and we should call each other by the names given at birth with respect!

Back in the olden days in India, it was widely practiced that when the husband died the wife burned with her husband on the funeral pyre. Think about how much the woman's life was worth, that when her husband died she was expected to die with his dead body. That practice was widely stopped long ago, but the last time I checked there was an incident in 2012. It surely does not stop there... have you heard of dowries? Yep… that practice still exists! There are terrible stories of women being tortured by their in laws because the were given an insufficient dowry by their parents at marriage. Women have been burned alive, tortured in their daily lives by husbands and in laws. Of course this is not true of every family. Some do value that they will be gaining a family member as opposed to all the things attached with her.

Recently, a friend of mine was chatting with one of her male friends. Somehow they got on the topic of gender roles. He told her that when he was talking to a woman, she had asked what he looks for a woman to contribute to the relationship. He told the woman that he will provide everything, he just wants her to take care of the home. He named tasks such as grocery shopping, cleaning, caring for the children. This is very interesting coming from a man who is still in his 20’s. Gender roles have not come along as far as I thought. It isn’t his fault though, it is the fact that our society is still teaching our men to be such. I even fell into that trap once I got pregnant with my son. I wanted the pregnancy to go well and then after having him I just stayed home. I never went back to the part time job I had. As no one said I should, but for some reason I felt that this was now my duty, to raise my children and care for the home. That was what I thought… until recently that is! One day I was sitting, watching my children play and folding clothes. Oh yeah… I felt like I just time traveled back into the 1950’s or something. I realized that this was not at all what I envisioned for myself. As much as I love my husband, I did not want to get lost behind his accomplishments. I wanted to create a legacy of my own and furthermore I wanted to have a mission larger than myself. Not that being a mom wasn't, but I did not want that to define me. That is when I invested in a franchise, which gave me the best of both worlds. I could still be an active parent and at the same time pursue my dreams that were beyond moming and home management. I have to say I am enjoying the challenge!

On numerous occasions I have had conversations with friends about, “if a man can’t support me, then I don’t want anything to do with him!” As I look back I was a culprit of this thought process too, but now I am wondering, “why can’t we support our own rear ends?” We, as women, have a significant role in society. Without us the human race would not exist. With a little sperm donation from the male species, women do the rest of the human growing for rest of the 9 odd months. Having hosted 2 little humans myself, I have to tell you, it is no walk in the park, but definitely worth it! Not every woman will choose the path of motherhood or marriage and that is okay! More so than these two paths, it is important to create equality and respect between both genders and although we have come a long way, we have far to go! We may not change everything at once, one simple step at a time is all it takes.