Mukhtar Ahmad Qureshi
Transition from being a daughter in one’s parental home to becoming a wife and thereby beginning a new experience is one of the major landmarks in a girl’s life. The journey is pretty much filled with many emotions that clash together, full of joy, anxiety, excitement, and a measure of nostalgia. Marriage may be celebrated as love and unity, but it brings real harshest realities, like leaving behind the comfort of familiar comfort within a girl’s home, which is spent by her formative years under the care of her parents.
The home of her parents is often a place where a girl feels completely safe, secure, and loved without bounds. After all, people find themselves nurtured, taken care of, and supported there. Parents are often the very first guides with whom one learned in their entire life to shape the world views, one’s dreams, and ambition. To leave this nurturing space saddens and bothers one.
A daughter has a profoundly intimate relationship with her parents, and especially her mother, who has been an emotional anchorage. Mothers constantly teach their daughters about the world, guide them through their first experiences of womanhood, and instil values that they carry throughout the majority of adult life. Fathers are often protectors, and so their connection with a daughter is uniquely deep. It will also have the connotation that marriage will separate her physically from such relations, especially when marriage, in traditional societies, has the connotation of a girl moving to her husband’s family place.
The wedding day: A time of joy and sorrow
On the wedding day, the bride is not the only emotional one, her family members also share emotional turmoil. While there are triumphs and exults at the new beginning, there is the undeniable sense of loss. For her, the ritual starts when she walks down the aisle or sits in the marriage ceremony, she is said to embark on a symbolic farewell from being a daughter to another life. There exists silently communicated understanding that nothing will ever remain the same again. Her role in the family will change and the dynamics of her relationship with parents and siblings also.
On the other hand, the wedding, being an occasion to celebrate love and to mark the beginning of life in all its respects, is something the bride looks forward to. For her, stepping into this new life of hope and longing full of promises and expectations, brings a spouse along, which means companionship, shared dreams, making a home and therefore happiness and excitement. But to manage these mixed emotions, the happiness of a new life ahead and sorrow for leaving childhood behind, seems to be really challenging.
After the marriage, the role shifts of the daughter into that of a wife. This stage comes with new duties, be it emotional or practical. The woman has to make up for being a wife and staying with her husband, understanding his habits, preferences, and way of living. This stage is tricky, as an individual has to try for the new relationship dynamics and get used to building their lives together.
In this changing scenario, an immigrant has also to get accustomed to the in-laws expectations. From a comfortable base of the home, now the immigrant has to cope with unfamiliar, and often times unrealistic, expectations of the husband’s family. It becomes more daunting when cultural or traditional expectations heap too much burden on the new wife to alter her ways of life according to the new family right away.
Finding a balance between old and new
While it is difficult to undergo an emotional transition from being a daughter to becoming a wife, for many it is also a time of growth and learning about self. The question here is to strike a balance between the relationships that are left or maintained with one’s family while forging new bonding relationships with a spouse and the in-laws. Over time, most women are able to nurture this identity as daughters while being able to fully embrace the role of a wife. They learn that, after being married, it does not mean that one loses identity as a daughter but expands his role in a larger circle of relationships.
Journey of love and growth
The emotional journey of transition from daughter to wife is, of course, a journey of love, growth, and adaptation. It is, indeed a painful and tearful stage, but it is already full of hope for the future shared and happiness with the new family. This transition phase requires emotional strength, patience, and support from both families.
(The author is a teacher by profession and hails from Boniyar, Baramulla. He can be reached at [email protected])
