In a post-modern society characterized by low fertility and few kids per family, each parent acts as a kind and all-forgiving Dhritarashtra thus giving rise to an army of modern Duryodhanas. Bad behaviour is not only tolerated but in many cases encouraged by modern parents. Each kid is sold the story of being a special snowflake where the whole world is supposed to rotate around them. Thus begins the story of entitlement syndrome which follows Gen X from childhood to youth. Unfortunately, the world bites young boys hard and punctures their ego balloon once they grow up, where they are supposed to perform or perish. On the other hand their sisters turn out to be pretty lucky and their snowflake image only grows over time — which we will refer to as the Entitled Middle Class Princess (EMP) syndrome.
What makes middle class girls special is that not only are they treated like princesses by their family members but are fed the constant victimhood narrative associated with being a girl in a third world country like India. The only difference is that unlike their poor sisters they hardly face any hardships and live a life of luxury supported by their parents. The protected environment provided by the family ensures that most of their wishes are fulfilled with little to no effort. This point can be confirmed by the praise that most of these middle class girls have for their fathers — specially on how they care for them. Also, as mentioned above, unlike men who still have to go and face the heat of the bad real world, middle class girls get a free pass even in social life from school to college to work, where all efforts are made to assuage their ego and mistakes are overlooked thanks to the political correctness regime and the gender card.
Finally, due to the system of arranged marriages and dowry, women still retain the right to work or not work after marriage, unlike men who have no choice but to be the breadwinner of the family. Just look around yourself to confirm that there are hardly any men who are jobless and have a good wife, while there are many young women who prefer to opt out of the workforce and still get married to a rich or powerful man. The use of the gender card to shrug off each failure while getting rewarded for the smallest accomplishments — both at home and in public life — generates extreme narcissism which these women then carry into their marriages, thus building extreme expectations that are impossible to be satisfied by future husbands. Given this EMP syndrome plus the tough anti-dowry laws, marriages are becoming a bad deal for middle class men, who have to pay a high cost in case they want to divorce one of these princesses.
Let’s look at one such case of Abhinandan, an upper middle class Hindu boy who married Shruti two years ago. All was going well for the 28-year-old orthopaedic surgeon before he agreed to marry the girl of his parents’ choice. The girl belonged to a political family with her father being a big shot in local politics. The marriage took place with the usual grandeur that defines current middle class marriages. The soft-spoken and friendly doctor knew that marriage would change his life completely but did not know that it would be the biggest mistake of his life.
The problem started soon after marriage due to Abhinandan’s devotion to his family, which was something that Shruti did not like. The more she tried to pull him away from his family the more he resisted it tooth and nail. The constant pestering by his wife led to constant but small friction between them in the beginning, which kept on growing over time. The issue finally escalated to the point where Shruti aborted their three-month-old foetus and blamed the guy and his family for beating her up and causing the abortion. The behaviour of Shruti was common knowledge for all friends and both families but in the end the girl’s parents decided to side with her. The final result was that the whole family was slapped with 498A on false accusations. To make things worse, Abhinandan’s younger sister — who was not even home — was blamed for forcing Shruti to abort the foetus. Given the mass abuse of 498A, it is not uncommon to hear such stories where entire families including women are punished to extract revenge.
You would think that it is just another story but given the image of Abhinandan, it has left a sour matrimonial taste among many of his friends and well-wishers to the point that many of them are considering not marrying at all, or not marrying middle class girls. If the trend continues, middle class working women would have a tough time getting married as a lot of men would start preferring poor women who don’t suffer from EMP. This trend is very similar to the one seen in western countries where white men are increasingly opting to marry Latino or Asian women who are not as narcissistic as their western counterparts. Similarly in India, poor girls have seen the hardships of real life and would appreciate the hard work of their spouses for their family instead of whining about patriarchy and oppression while watching TV and checking Facebook inside an air-conditioned house. Also, poor girls who have seen that real life is about compromises and not all wishes can be fulfilled are less likely to break marriages and slap divorce charges willy-nilly. Another factor in favour of poor women is that they are a lot more grounded in our culture and reality and actually love having children — which is a biological duty of the family — instead of whining about how difficult it is to have children and manage them.
All in all, if this trend continues, middle class women may find it increasingly difficult to find suitable grooms in the coming years. Of course, thanks to hypergamy, men and their families would have little problem with marrying below their social status, unlike girls or their families who would find it difficult to marry their daughters to someone they consider below their standards. You can ask around to confirm that it is already getting difficult for parents to marry off their highly successful daughters. If middle class girls and their families want to stem this trend and stop this rot, they need to do a serious introspection on whether pampering their kids is such a good idea — and if living alone with a cat like western women is better than adjusting to live with their husbands.
Finally, this is not a men vs women issue as it is the parents who are to be blamed for this mess in the first place. This is a problem faced by society as a whole, as the women reading this would quickly realize that they are likely to have a brother or son of their own to be affected by it in the future. Similarly, men who cherish their duty of being fathers and brothers should give it a good introspection as well. The west, having created permanent fault lines between men and women in their society, is now trying hard to replicate this problem in India — which has always valued Dharma over rights and cherished both men and women for their contribution to family and society as a whole.