Who is going to accept her?

"You know what Sampu, a week ago, an awful incident took place in my relatives' circle. A couple got married at the time of COVID and the groom died on the fourth day.

OMG! That's terrible!! That's so unfair!! May such thing never ever happen with anybody again!!

Yeah, Who's gonna accept the girl now?

WHAT? THAT WAS SO RUDE! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

That's the society! I mean, which new guy is going to accept her? She isn't going to have a normal marriage now."

Well, one fine evening after my dinner, I was texting one of my close guy-friends and we were talking about some silly and some casual stuffs. And all of a sudden he said this!!

I was startled! I ran out of words. I could not think about anything and just went blank for a while. After I regained some alertness, the first thing I did was I blocked him! Maybe my feminine and teen ego together made me block him? First of all, he is a well-educated person and is definitely old enough to realize what he is saying. Okay, so, a person who belongs to a real good background comes to me and says, "Who is going to accept a girl?" And when I try to interrupt, he blames it all upon 'The Society'.

How paradoxical is this? I cannot figure out where to start from! While the youth today are supposed to be modern and civilized, you still encounter such people with backward mentality. A guy, who is supposed to be educating the unprivileged on such matters is himself talking about the acceptance of a widow? I was astounded! Does she need to be accepted?? Why?? Did she commit any crime? She can still rock everything!!! She can still do whatever she wants and be with whoever she wants!! What on earth does 'New Guy' and 'Normal Marriage' mean?? She can't be limited!! 'The Society' can't limit her from doing whatever she wants! She has all the right to do whatever she wants and she is not at all to be blamed for whatever happened! I got so enraged at the beginning. But then, I got down to ponder about how ironic it is!

 Well, I must consider myself fortunate for belonging to an aware family and I have barely been talked about my limitations on the basis of my gender or even about these patriarchal systems. I would simply hear, watch or acknowledge such things from optimists and empowered social activists through different social media, so, I was really content in myself and had never speculated about it from such perspective. So, I began researching online. And most importantly, I got out of my self-content periphery and began to realize the things happening around me. Everything seemed so different now!

First of all, this made me think about how my elder dad (my dad's elder brother) put tika to us before my 80-year-old widowed grandmother. Isn't the oldest member in the family supposed to put tika first? It hit me so hard when I realized that, there might still be some people who believe the widows to be the carriers of back luck! Some people in the traditional societies might even blame upon the girl saying she had brought all that misfortune to the family! And there might be some others who are not going to consider her 'pure' anymore! She might be labelled 'impure' in many religious works and auspicious occasions. She might be restricted on many occasions just because her husband died. On top of her suffering, she is likely to get tortured and traumatized. Her red and other colorful dresses might be seized and all other indices of a married woman such as sindoor, bangles, and ornaments might be snatched. She might as well get forced to wear white clothes to mourn upon the death of her husband. In some cases, she might not even be allowed to remarry. 'The society' might determine the rest of her life. On top of everything, it's so distressing to imagine how much more she might have to suffer during this COVID pandemic. The pandemic has itself seized so much of freedom and comfort and besides that, she might have to go through something similar to what they call hell-on-earth. Let alone the evil masculinities that will be attempting to achieve and assault her!

There is a dual environment in Nepal. In the city side, around where I live, there is no such adverse impact and biasness among the people. In the society where I live, the widowed woman are not really distinguished from the rest. They are respected and treated equally as any other women. In fact, I have come across some women who got back to their usual routines after their husbands had died. However, the condition on the country areas might be pathetic! I found this article really relatable in context of the country areas.

 https://www.worldpulse.com/community/users/prakreeti-sapkota/posts/91033

Well, blocking him wasn't the best thing to do! I was so confused upon how to react that I instantly decided to get out of the situation. I was agitated to get such response from a young guy. I have always believed that humans are evolving which means we need to make efforts to make it happen. If we move on with all the same instructions that our elders taught us without trying to perceive them from our perspective and trying to modify, remould, improvise or make adjustments to it, then what makes us different from those who lived in the unprivileged era? He might be living in such society doesn't mean that he needs to accept everything exactly how his society has taught him. With so much ignorance among the educated, where are we leading? Nevertheless, I am not at all ready to accept how he interpreted the incident! I do not at all believe upon this tag of 'impurity' and 'acceptance' people put upon a widow. However, I am really confused upon how I can play my part in the best way so that we can educate such mentalities!!