Daughters- Liabilities?

Today’s headlines in a leading daily must have made every self-respecting woman indignant. At least, it rankled me no end. A Supreme Court judge names her two daughters as her liabilities! In this day and age, where girl children are proving themselves as responsible as the boys, if not better in leading an equally responsible and fulfilling lives, and when they are being considered for the highest post in a country, you have such statements coming from a person, who is supposed to be an upholder of justice! Why do we not understand that it is no longer necessary to belong to a particular gender to prove your worth and that we need not grant equality? I wonder how this particular judge would handle a case which would involve killing of a girl child. Would not her bias come in the way of her dispensing her judgment impartially? When she herself has a value system that upholds the denigration of womankind by naming them as liabilities, how can one trust her unbiased judgment?
The daughters need to stand up and fight their case here. I remember, when I was growing up, my father would introduce us three sisters as liability number 1, 2, and 3! I guess it was a regret he had, that he did not have a son; more so because he felt he fought a losing battle when it was one against four, albeit all in fun. My mother had to listen to her share of comments from his relatives, when her third daughter was born, and I remember my grandmother actually cried! To her credit, my mother was very happy! He never failed in his duties as a father though, and gave us all good education and opportunity to grow. Today, I am sure he does not think of us as liabilities, as he has gained three sons-in-law, who respect and adore him; not that the daughters didn’t! Though I am not defending my father’s way of introduction, I am willing to condone it, simply because he is a man; what galls me is that a woman, in a seat of honor, to whom the country looks up to, is publicly declaring her daughters as her liability! Can her daughters prove her wrong? Can they rise up in the echelons of society, and prove to their mother who has classified them as burdens, that they are more of an asset than all the material wealth that she has declared in her returns? That she need not spend that same wealth in ‘settling them’ in life but that once she gives up working and is dependent on her co-humans, these very same daughters would take care of her, without waiting for permissions or sanctions from their partners?
Mohana Narayanan
December 30, 2010