I suppose the point of Mrs. was to stir outrage at the patriarchy but it did not get there for me. The woman who gets married falls into a trap of bad sex, endless cooking, cleaning and service providing had a dance troupe. So this is someone who has more options than most - a path to financial independence. Maybe she chose to marry a doctor to have a better quality of life than she could afford on her own given her skills.
The cost of entry to that life is everything that follows - really any other outcome would be miraculous. The lady dives right into cooking lavish spreads for meals everyday, packing lunches for her husband, being at his beck and call - aiming to please as a traditional Indian wife. There is no scenario where any woman can achieve that ideal - the array of issues may vary in each situation but success is never attainable and so of course she fails. To me this movie is not about how messed up the arranged marriage and joint family living is for a woman who has dreams (and a mind) of her own. Instead it is about a woman aiming for unrealistic things, failing to set boundaries and ground rules; suffering the consequences.
Many Indian women I have known throughout my life took a very different approach than the protagonist did in this movie, a more pragmatic one. After the dust of the wedding had settled, they asserted themselves strongly and made it known that they would not be taking a lot of instruction from anyone. Some of them were able to get their husbands to distance themselves from the rest of the family to reduce ongoing interference in their life as couple. I can't claim that they all had blissful marriages or that dealing with in-laws was uncomplicated. But they earned their space, won freedoms that could not be wrested away from them and chance to do what they wanted to by saying no whenever needed.
There was a very useful kernel in the story that got a bit lost in the endless cycles of cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. There is the scene when the woman confronts the husband about mechanical sex aimed solely for reproduction and expresses that its not good enough for her. She is immediately attacked about her appearance and desirability. There is also the insinuation that she is a slut because she knows so much about the topic. It explains the obsession with chastity in marriage - the idea is if the woman has no prior baseline then whatever is on offer will suffice, the bar for the husband can effectively be on the floor with no consequences.
The reality is that it does not take either experience or genius for a woman to figure out that her intimate relationship is completely unsatisfactory. She comes to that conclusion pretty quickly on her own but there is really no recourse if she wants to remain married - nothing will change as such a man cannot possibly have anything to fix, he is perfection already.
Comments