Tradition to dominate the women folks

    Women leave their paternal homes when they get married, with exceptions in a matriarchal society. They leave behind siblings, relatives, neighbors, and friends, starting a new life in a different and strange place full of unfamiliar people, almost void of emotional links. She can't freely get to know people again as she did in childhood when no freedom was barred and innocence was unlimited. Now, as a grown-up, she is supposed to maintain grace, distance herself from men except her husband, and avoid wandering alone away from her house or locality, at least in the beginning of this 'new' life.

    Let's say she discards almost everything she learned, earned, and stored since childhood until her marriage. The sacrifice is immense. In society, the family is a functional unit, and to be isolated from it is like a wolf isolated from its pack and left in the wild in a strange jungle. This renders her vulnerable and weak, suddenly non-capable of functioning as she used to and uncertain about her exact role in the new family.

    This societal norm keeps women divided and ruled. Their weaknesses do not lie in their physicality but in the tradition of divided-and-ruled.

    However, letting a stranger man come into your house and stay there forever, unguarded and unchecked, isn't viable. Society has seen more crimes committed by men than by women, and it doesn't trust men more than women. So, the tradition suggests that women must accompany their husbands to their homes, where they have to live with many family members, at least until they decide to be independent. They face immense pressures, difficulties, abuses, and more, not due to lack of strength but due to lack of information about the new family, the locality, the neighbors, and the cultural variations of the new place. Gaining acceptance in the new locality, new family, and among neighbors becomes her challenge. To say that it's a mighty task, frustrating, and time-consuming would be undeniably true. Starting afresh might be a good thing sometimes, but no one can say that it's easy and fun. And starting afresh by getting married is not easy and fun either.

    While settling into married life, long time passes before she realizes she has children, and family troubles arise. There's minimal time for her to focus on her own body and mind development or on social issues affecting women. Importantly, trust between family members is not easily gained, as possibly none of them shared their childhoods with each other. Trust is rarely gained under mysterious and unpredictable circumstances. If not trust, at least childhood days paid the price to gain knowledge of the truths of so many people. She would have to pay a similar or different price to learn the new truths of the people around her. This condition keeps women isolated, divided, oppressed, backward, and ignorant. The solution is, well... Hope for a better future.