From Paraya Dhan to Apni Beti, Apna Dhan

By Nonika Singh

• A young married daughter shells out a whopping Rs 4 lakh for her father’s open heart surgery, steadfastly refusing to even consider a cheaper alternative.
• Neelam Man Singh Chaudhry, city’s celebrated theatre persona, brings home her ageing, ailing parents, constructs a separate apartment for them keeping in mind their individual needs and requirements, seeks expert medical opinion to make their lives as comfortable as possible.
• After her father’s demise Anuradha Sharma, yet another married daughter and a mother of two sons, decides to be the emotional anchor in her mother’s life unmindful of snide remarks and undeterred by possible social ridicule as her ma-in-law stays alone in the same city.

PLEASE welcome the new generation of caring, conscientious daughters who are only too willing to go that extra mile, bend every single rule in the book of Indian patriarchal thought and defy time-honoured societal dictates with a snooky ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude. In this land of men, by men, for men, where conventionally daughters are brought up as unequals, almost as outsiders in their family of birth, the new generation of daughters is a telling commentary on our dynamic social ethos. Richa Shree (Lecturer, Punjabi University, Patiala, who moved back) with her single mother along with her husband, remarks, "Daughters have always been emotionally close to their parents and feel a greater tug of love and affection.

Earlier, they never had the freedom to express their suppressed feelings and were duty-bound to serve their husband’s family. But today, thanks to economic self-sufficiency and emotional emancipation, they can not only voice their thoughts but also put them into practical shape." Dr N.K. Oberoi, Professor in the Department of English, Panjab University, Chandigarh, who enjoys a special relationship with his only child — a daughter — while conceding that the present equation does connote a new plateau, agrees that the bonding between a daughter and her parents is not exactly a new phenomenon. He states: "Between my sister and I, it’s she who visits our parents more often than I do even though geographically I live nearer to them than she does."

Blame it on biological differences or gender-rearing practices, the fairer sex as a rule is more affectionate. Virendra Mehndiratta, a well-known writer of Hindi literature, muses, "In a man’s life, family is microcosmic as he has to address larger issues of life. But for a woman, even in her educated modern avtaar, family is the pivot on which her whole being thrives."

So, whoever said ‘Love is an incident in a man’s life and history in a woman’s wasn’t perhaps referring to romantic love alone but love as an all-encompassing, overwhelming emotion. However today’s daughters are not passive, emotional fools who are experiencing a gush of sentiments. No more are they ‘chidiyan da chamba’ who will fly to another hearth. They are instead now striking roots in their family of birth. Dr Vidhu Mohan, a psychologist, feels that the transition from Paraya Dhan to Apni Beti, Apna Dhan was a logical corollary to empowerment of women.

Dr Harpreet Kanwal, another psychologist, dissects the new scenario differently and says, "The present social structure is gravitating towards anomie as the joint family system is breaking up rapidly and nuclear units are becoming a norm. Couples in the nuclear set-up, however, are finding it impossible to cope with modern day complexities and challenges. The urge to belong somewhere pushes them towards the girl’s parents who conventionally never played a significant role in the couple’s life.

Whatever the underlying reasons or compulsions, the new arrangement is working out much better. The bonding runs deeper and stronger. Goodbye saas-bahu feuds, the jamai-saas-sasur bonhomie is here to stay. Mehndiratta analyses it thus, "Daughters are reposing greater faith and confidence in their own flesh and blood and not without reason. I strongly believe that a mother can go to any extent, even make sacrifices and compromises to ease out strings and creases in her daughter’s life". Of course, like all social relationships this one too is need-based and steeped in the social exchange theory. John Thibaut and Harlod Kelly, who proposed this theory, emphasised the inter-dependence of social relationships. They profess that the quality of outcomes experienced by two people engaged in a relationship depends on the behaviour of both participants and is a ratio between pleasure, gratification and effort or anxiety. Predictably, if the outcome is favourably loaded, the relationship sustains. So Richa Shree’s statement comes as no surprise. She says matter-of-factly, "Though initially I was motivated to stay with my mother because she was alone, ultimately, the alignment has proved to be beneficial for me. For one, I don’t think we could have afforded so many comforts at the beginning of our careers." Besides, many see the new arrangement as a race between nani and ayah in which nani wins hands down.

But the crux is whether the overriding considerations of comfort and convenience can balance out the backlash which this shift might generate? Does it not enhance marital conflict, for if in a conventional set-up, the daughter-in-law is the odd one out, so is the son-in-law in the modern arrangement. Besides, research worldwide has listed parental interference as one of the major disturbing factors in creating marital dissent. Mehndiratta says, "As a rule, a couple should be allowed to create their own nest, undergo the cathartic process of adjustment with each other even if it is traumatic to be alone. But I guess the couples who have opted for this new model are perfectly attuned to each other.

Neelam couldn’t agree more and adds emphatically, "At times, if I lose my cool with my parents it’s Pushy, my other half, who tells me to be more tolerant and patient." Still isn’t the son-in-law assailed by feelings of guilt? After all, being a dutiful son-in-law only means being a callous son. Is there no remorse at having abandoned his own parents? While Neelam insists that her in-laws (now no more) were as it is staying in a large joint family, Richa claims that her special bond with her mother has only reinforced her spouse’s ties with his own parents, making him more responsible towards them.

Nevertheless, parents are being increasingly alienated from their male progeny and are inching closer to their female offsprings. Reena Singh, working in the Department of Sociology, Panjab University, in her Ph.D. thesis in sociology found a yearning for daughters amongst parents and even discovered that parents have no reservations against accepting financial help from their daughters. A sharp detour, almost a U-turn, from the days of yore when parents considered it an anathema to even accept a morsel at their married daughter’s home. Yet despite this perceptible change in mindset, the centuries-old psyche is evident in some unconscious subtle ways. As opposed to sons, parents have only limited expectations from their daughters, which explains why this matrix has evolved its own balance. While the parents are constantly breathing down the necks of their sons and bahus, they realise only too well their daughter’s need for breathing space. King Lear might have fretted, fumed and consequently banished Cordelia when she uttered, "You have begot me, bred me, loved me, I return those duties back as are right fit, obey you, love you, and most honour you .... That Lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry, half my love with him, half my care and duty."

Today parents empathise. So, Anuradha, who insists she has been brought up to be an individual in her own right and not an appendage, though living in her mother’s spacious house has an independent dwelling unit to herself.

Neelam too felt the need to create a separate niche for her parents as she reflects, "At a point in your life you reach a particular stage when you have an independent rhythm and pattern and you can’t allow anyone else to infringe upon your intimate space." So this new relationship is not marred by false pretensions and impossible demands. All’s well with the new world, it seems.

Yet the change is largely confined to affluent urban homes. So one wonders as to what extent monetary factors are shaping these ties? Dr Mohan dismisses such suggestions, for she feels, "When avarice or greed dominates a tie, it becomes exploitative, which mercifully, the parent-daughter bond has not yet graduated to." But a city counsellor is more blase and says that even if at a subconscious level, the dynamics of relationship is being influenced by monetary constraints.

Perhaps this is what makes the ghar jamai more amiable and amenable in sharp contrast to the sons-in-law of yore who maintained a pompous, aloof image and kept a suitable distance. Besides, it’s driving a wedge between siblings. Often the children, especially brothers and sisters, find themselves on the opposite sides of the fence, when it comes to vital matters of property and inheritance.

But, then, as Mehndiratta puts it, "Whenever old values are challenged there is a hiatus before new mores can be embedded in the socio-cultural fabric. "Till that happens the conflict ensues. Old versus the new. The clash is eternal and change is the law of nature. Growth, after all, is essential for all living species but more so for those who survive by transforming and not merely adjusting. Whether this change will usher in a new dawn or sound the deathknell of a deteriorating structure, no one really knows.

Neelam, who doesn’t quite endorse this, says that the new process is not exactly a role reversal between siblings of the opposite sex for, in a family, there is always one person who is more responsible about his duties than the others. Still, she hopes that the emergence of responsible and dutiful daughter in the social milieu will put an end to the obsession for sons. Probably some of the added value of male progeny will rub on to the female children as well, who conventionally have been marginalised and devalued. But for the time being, the more positive benefits will accrue to the parents themselves.