Abuse of women
I am not sure whether Abuse of women by their partners is big or sexy enough for Aamir Khan to cover in Satyameva Jayete. I am seeing many cases of abuse, but in this blog I am planning to cover only one type of abuse.
First of all there are 3 types of abuse that a woman can be subjected to:
-physical abuse -mental abuse
-financial abuse
The physical abuse is easy to describe and for people to see, understand and accept.
Mental abuse is very difficult to know, experience, describe and get a sympathetic view.
Financial abuse is when the husband (I know I am being politically wrong, but what the hell!), refuses to pay for the household expenses, children’s expenses, NEVER buys anything for the house or the kids, refuses to pay school fees, fraudulently takes money from the joint account, etc. etc.
I also know of a woman who cheated her husband off all the money they had and left him almost penniless, but with the housing mortgage.
When a girl gets married she really surrenders herself completely to the husband’s family, but I still think the following precautions (at least for 6 months) should be followed:
– keep your savings account (salary account) as a single account / joint with your mom as it was prior to the marriage
– do not change any nomination in any asset / life insurance plan / mutual funds, etc.
-have a kid ONLY after you consider the financial implications of a kid – including a 3 year break for yourself
– force him to save/invest money for specific goals (this is just tco see how he reacts when he is asked to sacrifice present consumption for a future consumption
– check each other’s financial attitude towards saving, investing, splurging, vacations – a very big gap can be difficult to handle
Of course it is nice to know who will pay for major medical expenses of parents (how much will you pay, when will you say No, etc.) but all this can wait. There is no tearing hurry, but yes if you do your financial planning and or if you have a person like me around you……these embarrassing questions will come up sooner rather than later.
Somebody needs to do it na? Cannot wait for it to become so big that Aamir Khan talks about it on Satyameva Jayate….:-) LOL
rajivahuja
Nice article It has sound advice which I think is relevant to all married couples &especially parents of daughters of marriagable age.
muthu krishnan v
expenses of whose parents? the girls or the boys? 🙂
what if the girls parents have no working children and implicitly depend on the SIL?
Jitu
Subra,
Good post… Liked it…and am sure will need this in near future 🙂
Mira D
anecdotal, but may not be out of place, subrabhai:
I remember when I was in my lovely twenties (unlike hard-as-nails forties) once a prospective had finished the tea ceremony and assessed the family (elder parents and daughter-only),obvious
net worth.
He’d asked– what arrangement will you make for these oldies?
If the SIl’s expect inheritance benefits, active involvement in taking care of the elders is a given. or should be.
In Gujarati, we have a saying– taru maru sahiyaru, maru mara baap nu. Not translatable. 🙂
That question ranks amongst the biggest lessons of my life.