Trapped in a Culture That Prays to Goddesses and Quietly Buries Its Daughters

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Why do a girl's parents always bow down?

[00:00:03]From the moment their daughter gets married, they live in fear. Fear of giving less kids, fear of saying something wrong, fear that their daughter might suffer because of them.

[00:00:10]>> My husband said to me, "Would you say dad just take it?" Like cuz I took it.

[00:00:14]Or would you say, "No, I'm leave the house."

[00:00:21]>> I think to keep it peace. Peace in between.

[00:00:23]>> Peace for who? Peace for men.

[00:00:26]>> Peace for everyone. What do you mean peace for everyone >> in your family?

[00:00:30]>> So women have to keep the peace for everyone in a family. That's their task.

[00:00:34]>> Marriage is not the destination. Stop raising your daughters thinking marriage is the ultimate goal because it isn't.

[00:00:41]>> Divorce the worst possible thing that can happen to a woman.

[00:00:55]They say this is the greatest culture ever to be existed. Ancient, rich, spiritual, a civilization that has survived thousands of years and welcomed the whole world with open arms. But ask them where will a woman fit in all of this? And watch the conversation change.

[00:01:14]Because this is the same culture that did not choose a king to represent power. It chose a goddess. They built temples for her. The moment a woman is conceived with the child, the people around her are curious not about her health. They just want to know whether it's a boy or a girl. Because that one answer is the deciding factor on how you and the child will be treated for the rest of the life. That single detail determines how the child will be received into this world. And the same fact decides whether the house fills with joy and celebration or settles into a silence that nobody names but everybody feels.

[00:01:56]My mother-in-law and husband started demanding us exetermination test. They were like uh both daughters are not welcome. If it's one it was a different issue but if there are two then there can't be two daughters. Really shocked.

[00:02:09]It was a cultural shock. I said no way I'm not undergoing this test. So they I mean initially they tortured me for it.

[00:02:17]I did not agree to it. Then they uh deceived me into it. And once the baby arrives, there are only two options. The house either celebrates or it grieavves for the loss. There is no in between. The parents are congratulated. Phone calls are made to let you know that it's a boy. And there is nothing wrong in that actually. But if she is a girl, they console the mother telling maybe next time. Like the child that she has given birth is merely a first attempt or a mistake. The same woman who spent 9 months growing alive is told that she should try again until a son arrives. She is still in some or the other way incomplete. And now is the child treated like a human after all?

[00:03:03]All they see is years of responsibility and dowry accumulating. Female infanticide. It is not a chapter from another century. In homes that look completely ordinary from outside, a baby girl hours old or days old is killed.

[00:03:18]Not by strangers, by her own family.

[00:03:21]>> And uh once I developed allergic problems, I was taken to a hospital where the doctor by taking advantage of my sedation, he did a fetal scan. The when we came back home, my husband started demanding an abortion. When I turned back, I saw my mother-in-law kicking this carrying cord which was on the stairs down the staircase. It was only because there was a buckle and there was a blanket around the baby, the baby escaped. But at that moment, I knew that if I protest, if I say anything, all three of us would be killed. In so many families you will find five daughters sometimes 10 and the family keeps going not because they wanted a big family but the reason is they were waiting for a son as if the daughters before him were not birds they were as I told earlier just failed attempts This is not about poverty or lack of education. Walk into the most educated households. the wealthiest families. It is the same story repeated again and again. They say a girl is a burden and a boy carries the family name forward.

[00:04:47]They built an entire belief system on the idea that she was never supposed to stay. From the moment she was born, she was already belonging to someone else.

[00:04:56]Treated like a liability. And then they say boys are easy. Of course, he is easy. You never asked anything of him.

[00:05:04]You never handed him any responsibility.

[00:05:07]and you never held him accountable to begin with.

[00:05:10]>> I have heard a number of Indian mothers say that they'd rather have sons for no other reason other than the fact that their sons lives would be easier. So while I understand that you're saying that it's easier for them, is it easier because we don't raise them, is it easier or is are are we just forgiving ourselves for laziness? Because the truth is, I'd argue that it's actually a lot harder to raise a decent man.

[00:05:38]Societyy's determined to forgive him for all of his spoilables. He could be a terrible human being, and society is willing to overlook that. And let me tell you something, I grew up with strict parents. I still live with said strict parents. And as a brown woman, it is hard. Let me preface. I will always still respect my parents and love them because they did a lot. I feel like a lot of people don't understand that there's a nuance when I talk about my strict parents and when I talk about parents, my parents, the people I love, they are perfect. Like they do so many things perfect and I love them for that.

[00:06:10]There are things that they are flawed at. You can have the same conversation.

[00:06:15]You can do these two things in one conversation because it's true. I love them. But I was not allowed to live for the longest time. social cues, having friends, hanging out. All of that was barred in my family. We would go to school, come home. I would be out of school by 2:15, in the car by 2:30. My mom was already outside waiting. I didn't know who I I still feel like I don't know who I am. I still feel like when it comes to social cues in social settings, I'm still struggling to make a space and make myself feel comfortable.

[00:06:47]And then came the permission whether to go out, to meet with friends, to take a job in a different city, or to simply exist beyond the four walls of the house. Every step she took outside required an approval that she never saw her brother ask for. He came and went as he pleased. Nobody questioned his freedom. Nobody called it dangerous or inappropriate or too much. But her independence, her wanting was always treated like a problem to be managed.

[00:07:18]Some brown parents don't realize how damaging it is to tell a girl to wait till marriage to do what she wants to do. So you're telling me I have to wait till I get married to someone to live my life? So given this idea that we will be allowed to do what we want after marriage, it's assuming that your parents will be the one to choose the person that you're being married to, right? So if that's the case, why would you get me married into a family that has completely different morals than you? In other words, you would get me married into a family that also believes that a woman should wait till marriage to live her life, should only be allowed to do the things she wants to do under the control of a man. So, the parents won't have to deal with any of the blame or the consequences that come with having a daughter in the brown community. You're telling me half a girl's life she has to listen to her parents and then the rest of her life she has to listen to her husband, a random ass man that you decided to pick for her. So, where in that life does she get to do what she wants? Indian parents do have the mentality that your marriage is going to be successful only if we get you the guy.

[00:08:16]>> Yes. Exactly. Cuz they think we know better and and >> better to get you the perfect guy.

[00:08:20]>> And for so many I'm like I'm sorry. Have you looked at your own relationship?

[00:08:23]Like how well did you do that? You think you're going to do well for >> love was a factor that she was not even allowed to find. It was something that would be arranged for her at the right time by the right people. And so one day after a few meetings, she was married just like that to a stranger, a man to whom she had spoken only a handful of times. She was expected to walk away from everything she had ever known. Her home, her parents, friendships, routines, and build a life with someone she did not even know. I don't know if you can relate, but when I got married, every woman in my family for good that I had a career. Like, hello. I didn't just spend 20 plus years in school and college just to become the unpaid head chef. Not one auntie asked me how is work or what are my career goals. It's always when are you giving us the good news and what did you cook for dinner?

[00:09:13]But the uncles, the dads, they are interested in my career. They ask me what is your roles and responsibilities at work? What is the industry you're working in? What's wild is that after women get married in South Asian culture, we're just kind of expected to just kind of leave our lives behind. We move to where the man is, usually join the man's family or whatever.

[00:09:31]Culturally, growing up, we're taught how to conform and make everyone happy. So, we're used to it. And men just aren't raised in that way. They kind of just keep living their lives while we conform and adjust. And they don't even realize sometimes because they don't have to do it. I would be a South Asian boy. I would be treated like a king if I was a man. They would spend lakhs sometimes crores on her wedding but ask them to spend the same energy on her education, her career or independence. And suddenly there were limits and questions about whether it was necessary in the first place because the wedding is treated as an investment.

[00:10:09]Everything before it was just a preparation to bring her to this very moment. From childhood, she was told that marriage was not just an important chapter of her life. It was her ultimate destiny. She's expected to leave everything that she was familiar with for 25 to 30 years all at once. And no way you can debate that's a fair deal to begin with.

[00:10:32]>> Married but your wife doesn't want to live with your parents. Do you love your parents?

[00:10:35]>> Yes ma'am. I love you.

[00:10:36]>> But your wife doesn't want to live with your parents. Is that okay with you?

[00:10:40]>> Uh no that is not okay with me. I >> because in India especially marriage is not marriage is more than it's it involves the whole family. Even if they have a son and a daughter, >> why this difference of daughter?

[00:10:54]>> Well, because of the Indian tradition of patri petal linear, I mean um >> it's all right. Thank you.

[00:11:01]>> See that right there is a problem. We call marriage a union of two families but only one family loses their daughter while the other gains her. Think about it. She marries into his family. She serves his parents. She becomes the caregiver when they are sick. But her own parents, she needs permission to go back to her own parents. Society needs to understand women have parents. Women have homes. Women have spent 25 to 30 years in that home. And women deserve to choose whether to live with in-laws, their own parents or just with their partner. The same people who danced, clicked pictures and blessed her during the wedding quietly looked away when she asked for help after facing all the abuses and struggles. The answer was silence or advising her that every marriage has its difficulties and you have to learn to adjust. And the cruel part is where the abandonment came from.

[00:11:54]It was not strangers but her own family who thought that the concern or responsibility was over once she was married. And here's the most heartbreaking part. But when a girl's in-laws say you need permission to go and visit your own parents, permission to go to the people who gave her life, the ones who sacrificed everything for her. Just because she's married, does that mean her parents are no longer her family? No longer important. And for what? To prove that the boy's parents are somehow superior to keep alike the toxic tradition of power and control. If the boy's parents deserve respect, why don't the girls parents deserve the same? When people hear a woman is a woman's enemy, this is what it looks like. A mother-in-law who once stood in the same exact position decided not to break the cycle, but contribute more.

[00:12:45]And through all of it, the men stayed comfortable, not out of ignorance, but because this whole system worked for them, and it still does. She had no safety in the house she was sent to and could not return to the house she came from. She had two doors, and now both are closed. Parents have to realize that their daughter will always reach out to them first because that's the safe place she ever learned to trust. And no matter what goes down and no matter how complicated life gets, it's their duty to treat her without any judgment. And it is not too much for a daughter to ask her parents. You know, it's really odd when Indian people are like India has the love divorce free. Like look at these western people. They don't they divorce like left and right and they'd be like breaking up with their partners like this is why India's better. Um the difference is in India if your partner was abusing you and calling you slurs and stepping on your face you'd still stay with them.

[00:13:40]>> I think it's also important to acknowledge that the South Asian community has a huge stigma against divorces. It's usually blamed on the woman for tearing the family apart. If the kids are not doing well on anything, then everything gets blamed on the mother and nothing gets blamed on the father.

[00:13:57]>> Internet is celebrating a father welcoming his divorced daughter back home with flowers and music and it is beautiful. But the fact that this is going viral tells you everything you need to know about patriarchy in marriage because a woman being accepted back in her own home after divorce is still so rare that this feels revolutionary. In too many Indian homes, marriage is still sold to women like a one-way ticket. Once you leave, that's it. No return, no exchange. That is your home now. Stay there. Adjust. Do whatever you want. But don't come back here. And if things go wrong, suffer in silence. Women are taught from day one of marriage, keep the peace, think of the family, think of society. Because a woman who leaves is called selfish, difficult, broken, but a suffering wife is called mature. At >> first, she was not welcomed simply because of her gender, something she had absolutely no control over. And then she spent her entire childhood navigating discrimination that followed her like a shadow at every single stage of growing up. And after years of being prepared for marriage like it was the only destination and they finally got rid of her. So if that daughter ends up in a bad marriage and possibly finds the courage to leave it, the minds of these parents do not go to her safety or her suffering. They go straight to the shame and gossip of a divorced daughter that they would now have to carry for the rest of their lives, failing to understand that a divorced daughter is better than a dead daughter.