According to the line of Rigved 10/85/46 — O daughter-in-law! Lead you, life in
such a way that your mother-in-law all respect and honor you.
After the marriage, the wife leaves behind everything in her father's home and
comes to her husband's home. Everything is left behind including her mother,
father, brothers, sisters, family home- everything. She leaves behind the
entire milieu of love where she was born, spent her childhood, studies and
entered her youth and after becoming related to an unknown stranger, goes to
his home. Is she at a loss by this renunciation of her previous family? No. In
return for her renunciation, her total surrender to her husband's family, she
becomes a very important member of her new family. Now that family becomes her
own family, where she gets the status of the lady-of-the-house. She becomes the
owner of the family and the entire responsibility of the family comes on her
head.
In
this new family she becomes the Empress over her mother-inn-law, father-in-law,
and sister-in-law. Just as an Emperor looking after the happiness, comfort, and
maintaining cordial relations among all pays attention to the progress of the
kings and their populace under his ruler ship, similarly by becoming the chief
member of the family, the new bride has to carry a very big burden of properly
organizing the comforts, meals and the family paraphernalia for all the members
of the family. It becomes her duty to think of the interests of all the family
members, big or small. Because of maintaining all these duties, she is aptly
called the owner or the Empress of the family.
The
meaning of becoming the Empress or owner of the family does not imply that she
establish her supremacy over the others. The implied meaning of the above title
is that she should fulfill her important responsibilities, deal courteously
with all and administer the house with the guidance of the elders by benefiting
from their experience. By coming to the new milieu, she should not consider
herself as a servant and feel inferior in any way that is why she has been
given the glorious status of an Empress. All the members of the family should
conduct themselves with love and warmth towards her by giving her proper
respect.
But
today most men ignore this loving, healthy viewpoint and do not accord the
proper status to the new bride. By considering her as a servant, mother-in-law,
sister-in-law and others keep on ordering her every moment. They find fault in
her proper work. She is ignored,, neglected, beaten and sometimes even killed.
Why does this come to pass? It is a matter of great sorrow, grief and worry.
There is smoothness in dealings when the parents-in-law consider the
daughter-in-law as their own daughter and she also considers them as much more
than father and mother. The question is, 'who should make a beginning"
Parents-in-law or the daughter-in-law? Being the elders, the parents-in-law
should give her the love and warmth which they would accord to their own
daughter, so that the void she feels in her heart because of separation from
her own parents, is filled up. After that her enthusiasm for looking after the
needs and comforts of her empire will automatically double up.
In
this only lies the glory of the Lay of the house.
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