Empowered Women And Increasing Divorce Rates - Related

Empowered Women and Increasing Divorce Rates – Related?
‘Empowerment’ is a very tricky concept. What do we really mean by empowerment? Anybody who is independent physically, mentally, financially and psychologically is empowered. But can such a person not live within a family? Definitely, can!
Does education empower a woman? Does employment empower a woman? Do property rights empower a woman? At the outset all these seem to empower a woman. Sadly, a woman with all these too falls prey to a man’s bossy nature. Everyday, hundreds of educated and well-employed women like IT professionals, doctors, lawyers and teachers become victims of domestic violence or commit suicide unable to face difficult situations in life. So, real empowerment is making a woman confident of herself so that she can wade through any kind of difficult situation in life. Our education system unfortunately does not do that!
Surprisingly, there are many women who are illiterates but are really empowered. Empowerment does not mean right to run away from situations that are challenging but the strength to face them straight and wade through the rough waters.
There is a very thin line of difference between ‘adjustment/compromise’ and ‘establishing one’s rights and getting out of the relationship’. Marriage is a very well-thought over institution, evolved over ages. There are so many advantages in this institution, while there are a few disadvantages too. When two individuals born and brought up in two different homes have to live under one roof after marriage, there are bound to arise many differences. Both of them have to accept the changed atmosphere and make small compromises of what they were as independent individuals. If a home has to run efficiently, both the partners have to feel safe, secure, free, confident and empowered to run the home. Especially after the children are born, the home has to be a perfectly secure place for the children. Thus, whatever little differences the couple has, have to be sorted out amicably and peacefully, without creating fear and insecurity in the minds of the children. There can be no home without small little quarrels and arguments. These are accepted by everybody, including the children. But there is a limit. When these quarrels turn very sour leading to violence or mental harassment of one of the partners, the home becomes a very unpleasant place for everybody. Then divorce is the only way to bring peace to everybody.
Do empowered women take decision to separate boldly? Yes. They do. Gone are the days when women bore with all the violence inside their homes or bedrooms silently, just because they had no economic independence and just for the sake of their children or for the sake of their parents’ honour! It is good that women are coming out of unsafe and unpleasant relationships and living successful lives independently.
However, this empowerment is also misused to a great extent, in the sense that there is a growing rate of intolerance and rigidity among youngsters, not only women. Just because a woman has a job and an income, she is not ready to make even small compromises required to keep the family intact and chooses to take a divorce. There are many divorce cases that the lawyers and judges feel, can be stopped and the couples reunited, because they are started on flimsy grounds. Many of the quarrels begin on ego issues and neither of the couple is ready to accept defeat, though that might unite the family. I know of a case where the husband and wife started fighting over the extravagant expenses that the wife was indulging in, which the husband was trying to point out, because he was the only earning member and his resources were limited. The wife could not accept the fact that the husband was pointing out her mistake and they ended up applying for divorce. The wife is also well educated and not that she could not understand the situation! But she refused to see reason! Would you call this wife empowered? In fact, she is not even employed.
I know of cases where the wives apply for divorce just because they cannot tolerate their husbands living with their parents or taking care of them. Even before marriage, many girls these days lay conditions that their prospective in-laws should not be living with them! This trend is causing a dangerous social upheaval, where thousands of senior citizens are forced to live on their own or in old-age homes, leading to many other problems like insecure feeling for the grandchildren and grandparents, domestic feuds, uncontrolled quarrels between the husbands and wives of nuclear families, which very often end in suicides or murders! Families where three generations lived under one roof had their own advantages. Children grew up in secure conditions and elders were well taken care of. Of course there were cases of mother-in-law – daughter-in-law quarrels and domestic violence. But not all families were such. Family quarrels were handled within the four walls and families lived peacefully. However, now most of the women refuse to live in such families and this causes relationship cracks between the in-laws and women, husband and wife and parents and sons! Nobody is really happy. Especially in the present scenario where most of the women are employed, extended families would be the best option for everybody. Instead, families are breaking and child-care centres and old-age homes are cropping up all over. Psychiatric problems are also increasing along with this trend.
Though it is justified to empower women so that they can lead independent lives when the need arises and it is not compulsory for them to endure with domestic violence, women have to be careful while taking a decision to divorce, when the reasons are flimsy or based on ego, because such divorces bring pain to everybody involved.
Thus, we cannot make a general statement that empowerment has directly led to increasing number of divorces. May be empowerment has helped many women who would have otherwise suffered domestic violence silently to get out of bad relationships. Empowerment boosts the ego of women, breeds intolerance and some women may take hasty decisions, now that a solution is easily available. All said and done, however ideal a marriage is, it is an arrangement between two individuals born and brought up under two totally different atmospheres and both of them have to make compromises to make the marriage successful. They should not stand on ego or prestige. This is not impossible, as we see so many couples where the spouses are from two different countries and cultures and yet are living very happily as husbands and wives. If only one understands what marriage is, nothing can stop him or her from living happily married!

Sudha Narasimhachar