THE FUSE

The Silent Expectations Placed on Women

This is not a theory.
This is not something I read somewhere.
This is my own experience — what I have gone through and what I am still going through.

This is about women.
Women of all ages.
Working women, housewives, and women who manage both home and work.

After my marriage, when I started working, this slowly became my daily routine.

I wake up early.
Prepare breakfast and lunch.
Do household work.
Then I go to office and work there the entire day.

When I come back home, the work starts again.
Prepare dinner.
Set the table.
Clean the utensils.

Only after everything is done, then I can rest.

I have seen many women living the same life.
Different homes, same story.

On the other side, husbands also work.
But they can wake up late.
They get breakfast ready on the table.
They go to work.
After work, they come home to a ready dinner.
And then — they rest.

I don’t understand one thing.
Why is the pressure only on women?
Why can’t a woman rest like her husband?
Why doesn’t she get ready food on the table after working the whole day?

Today, women are getting the same opportunities as men.
Women are doing better than men in many fields.
Women are entrepreneurs.
Women are in government ministries.
Women are leading, creating, building.

But what about the normal woman?
The one who is not in a big position,
yet works sincerely every day — outside and inside the house.

Why doesn’t her family treat her the way men are treated in the same family?

Why is a woman still symbolically identified as a homemaker?
Whether she works outside or not,
she is still expected to manage the home by default.

A woman leaves her family for a man after marriage.
Yet she does not get the same respect as her husband in her own home.

Before marriage, she is told:
“This is not your home.”

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After marriage, she is told again:
“This is not your home either.”

Then where is her home?

For years, women have been making sacrifices for their families.
They adjust.
They compromise.
They keep quiet.

And in return, many don’t even receive respect.

This is the sad reality of Indian society.

In Indian society, we pray to goddesses —
Maa Amba, Maa Durga, Maa Lakshmi.
We worship female power.

But at the same time, we forget the women in our own families —
our mother, wife, daughter-in-law, daughter, sister.

We worship goddesses,
but we do not treat the women in our homes with the same respect.

How is this possible?

How can we worship Maa Amba,
but fail to give respect to the woman of our own house?

We offer prayers in temples,
but ignore the women who hold our homes together.

If a woman is considered divine in temples,
why is she taken for granted at home?

This is not about rituals.
This is about mindset.

Respect should not stop at the temple door.
It should begin at home.

Until we learn to respect the women in our families —
not as responsibility,
not as duty,
but as equal human beings —

our worship, our values, and our society
will always remain incomplete.