Friday, December 4, 2009
Power between men and women in marriage.
“Wife, I’m your slave, open your mouth, the nervous bridegroom was forced to say.” This is a nightmare of a phrase for people like Thanawi. In The Crooked Line Chughtai gives us a small vignette of the preparations and ceremonies of a wedding. Although I am aware that traditions like this one may have not been accepted on the whole by leaders of thinking in society, they were still being done. It seems kind of mean to me in a way to have the husband have to say these things, building up the wife in a way. I wonder if this is some sort of “fifteen minutes of fame” type deal, but instead fifteen minutes of power. While yes, the wives do hold considerable power in the marriage, dealing with affairs, raising the heirs, the husband is never regarded as needing to be nice to the wife, or pay her any respect for that matter. I wonder what this tradition does for the women and the families of the future brides, it clearly in some way excites them, but knowing what is to follow, how can one even giggle at this show?
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I agree that Umrao may have had a degree of spirituality with her all along throughout the novel She naturally grew into the role of a poet in her profession, and it was obviously important to her because she stuck with it for so many years of her life. For example, she is still reciting poetry for pleasure with Ruswa at the end of the novel, after she is done telling her whole story. It does seem natural then, for her to latch on to a religion to find meaning for her life, because poetry had had the same effect in her life.
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