Behind Every Man There is a Woman
By Er Taraprasad Mishra
Jajpur, Octo 26 :Existence of woman is the completion of man. She is both complementary and supplementary to man. Man and woman are two wheels of a carriage. The life of one without another is incomplete. Neither man nor woman can be what is in him or her to be, if either of them leads an isolated life. man and woman both contribute to the development of each other’s personality.
Our ancient scriptures assigned woman a place higher than man. It was nature , woman represented the destructive aspect of nature, woman represented the constructive one and that blessed was the home where woman was respected. Woman has a far better and responsible role to play in our society. She was traditionally the keeper of the home.
The man was the bread earner and woman managed the up-keep of the house. She bore children and brought them up. Everything went by her wish. She was the first teacher of the child. She gave the first schooling to the child. She gave the child all the lessons which made him or her it to be the member of the society.
The lessons on moral values and customs to be adopted by the child were learnt in the lap of mother. The role of a mother in a woman is unparalleled. It is the extreme sense of sacrifice and selflessness which is exhibited by a woman in the form of mother. In ancient India women enjoyed full respect and honour. They were the better-havles of men. No sacrifice or worship was complete without women participating in them.
They had full liberty to choose their husbands and it had full social sanction. The custom holding of Swayamwara, that is, choosing their life partners, was in practice. With the passage of time. Position of women could not remain what it had been before.
During the Muslim rule the position of women was further lowered and she was confined within the four walls of her house. In modern India women are the active partners in the building of this nation. They have distinguished themselves in every field of life as politicians, statesman, orators, poets, scholars , lawyers, doctors, ministers and ambassadors etc. Mrs.
Indira Gandhi created a Singular record by remaining the Prime Minister of India for eleven years. All important services are open to women like Indian administrative service, Indian police Service and other relevant fields. Women can play a better role in many fields.
In social service they can work wonders far better than men. They can help in the eradication of social evils like Dowry system, illiteracy of women, pardah system, remarriage of widows and child – marriage etc.
There is a very old and famous saying, “behind every successful man, there stands a woman”! A woman, not necessarily wife, could be the mother or perhaps a sister as well. It is said that a man can be successful with the best wishes and hard work of the ‘woman behind’.
But I wonder, does anyone (including women) give any importance to such statements today, when more often than not hollow propagandas to magnify “behind every victimized woman, there stands a man” are floated?
I feel women today are more inclined to be successful themselves, always willing to forgo domestic responsibilities, in the name of desired equality. I understand I might be sounding anti-women, an oppressor, or a so-called patriarch.
But I feel we need to ponder where exactly the equality is required. Is it required in a household? Is it required where women as mother, feel stressed and increasingly mentally
burdened, just because the schools are closed due to lockdown and children are staying at home? Can this increasingly desired equality of a woman, make a husband or a son, or a brother, successful? I crave to understand as to why a husband working outside and a wife working equally at home is not considered a balanced happy family, rather it’s called an ‘abuse’ towards the wife.
Don’t you think that the term ‘abuse’, is being increasingly used for various things in women’s those contexts that aren’t actually ‘abuse’? Men, ordinarily don’t care what ‘equality’ is, beyond ‘equal work, equal pay’, etc.
They overlook the fact that this is just a tip of the iceberg of radical feminism, which has nothing to do with ‘equality’, as it pretends. Whereas women know the difference between ‘equality
of a working woman’ and ‘equality of a house woman’ very well! What they do not know is choosing the priority between both the equalities even when the sweet and dearly beloved happy family
is at stake! All credit to hollow feminism’s character of dissolving and poisoning the family system and society.
Having said that, don’t you think that in today’s scenario where the feminism that led the women to be in the workplace, has also led the society to an uncompromising and exceptional social situation, where ‘women behind’ a successful man is a fallacy?
Considering marital relations (that’s where a woman’s equality is fought for most) I feel, the saying, “behind every successful man, there stands a woman”, must have come into being when the women had not fallen in the feminist trap of worrying about career and own success, rather were happy as a helping partner of the husband for life.
The more wife helped her husband to be successful by supporting him when he returns home from work, taking care of the household and the children, helping ease his stress; the more he can focus on his profession. The more successful the husband becomes, the more it benefits the ‘woman behind’.
Behind every great man there’s a great woman.Or so goes the old adage, commonly believed to have originated from feminist movements that began in the US back in the 1940s. It was initially used in an attempt to give recognition to the wives or female figures who significantly contributed to the lives of successful men.
But though well-meaning, it’s not hard to see that stating a woman stands ‘behind’ the success of man is both patronising and defeating. Such statements have no place in our world if we are ever to progress towards a gender-equal and gender-neutral society.
Women neither need nor want to stand behind. From Zelda Fitzgerald to Lillian Disney and Mitza Maric – history has abundant instances of women whose work went unrecognised.
Jane Hawking also remained unacknowledged for decades as she unfailingly supported her husband, the famed physicist Stephen Hawking’s pursuits. And no matter how substantial her support, not many likely recall Zelda Le Grange’s name as they revere her boss, South African leader Nelson Mandela.
