Pratiti Shirin writes for DOT :
A recent survey carried out by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) revealed that in Dhaka, 70 per cent of divorces are initiated by women. The same report also found out that divorce rates almost doubled while separation tripled in the last decade. Some of the common reasons are psycho-sexual and physical abuse, impotence, financial problems, incurable illnesses, addiction to drug and the virtual world and extra-marital relations. Rural areas experience higher rates than Dhaka. While conservative people might see this kind of change as a consequence of the influence of globalisation or breakdown of family values, other quarters will hail this social transformation as part of a pattern involving various social phenomena. They include socio-political unrest; Bangladesh being a transitional economy with an increase of overall purchasing power of people and an unprecedented participation of women in the Bangladeshi labour market. While economic independence does not necessary guarantee social freedom of a woman in the Bangladeshi context, being in paid employment does guarantee that a woman or her child does not have to be dependent on a man for feeding or clothing themselves. The social taboo regarding a divorced woman remains in force as it did before but there is greater social tolerance of it now. Divorced women are able to remarry and make a life for themselves or decide not to tread that path again. And a steady source of income makes the choice easier. There are reasons for which a man might be reluctant to divorce his wife. They might be connected to his sense of prestige and ego; he might be afraid that initiating a divorce would expose is personal weakness to the society or that he will be made a laughing stock. Alternatively, he might try to evade giving his wife the marital dowry which wives might claim if the husband is the initiator of the divorce. So it can be said that for strategic reasons, it is the wife rather than the husband who is initiating a divorce or a separation. Nowadays, the family of the wife initiates a divorce because the latter’s life comes under danger in the husband’s family.
While experts might question the wellbeing of children in broken families, it is better to be divorced and raise children alone than to kill them silently in a marriage in which both parties quarrel constantly or are involved with someone else. Compatibility is real: it is either there or not. It is not possible to change oneself overnight and all one can do is adjust oneself to circumstances. Although similar backgrounds do not guarantee the permanence of a marriage, people with very different socio-economic backgrounds are unlikely to adjust themselves to each other and will fight even if they do not want to. In such marriages, children grow up with different types of psychological disorders, making them unstable adults who are crippled for life. It is better to give children a peaceful environment and be separated if one can afford a separation rather than quarrel and fight in front of them. Moreover, recent studies reveal that irrespective of marital status, it is the quality of time a parent spends with their child which turns out to be the most important factor in determining the psychological wellbeing of a child. Also, a child’s welfare is directly related to the wellbeing of the mother. If she is abused in an unproductive marriage, it is more than likely that the child will also be affected in one way or the other by the mother’s depression.
Ever since the beginning of patriarchy, women have sold their self-respect to a man in return for security, food, shelter and the provision of a socio-cultural identity for their child. It is that social contract in which women have agreed to be kept in that golden cage in which they become the psycho-sexual property of a man in return for the provision of childrearing and household chores. Even if it is golden, it is a cage nonetheless. The light of hope is that we do not live in pre-historic times any more. Although the concept of a human right is relatively new, it is being applied to and recognised more and more as a basic right of all human beings. Obtaining a divorce and being free from an oppressive marriage is a woman’s human right. This was reflected in the recent verdict delivered by the Indian Supreme Court which abolished an age old law regarding adultery and declared that the wife is not the slave or the property of the husband. So even if divorce remains a stigma for Bangladeshi women and childcare outside marriage a worry, it is better to challenge gender norms whereby a woman is expected to play the role of a docile wife and be free from an abusive marriage in which one might literally get killed by the husband.
The writer is an Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Our time is a news portal