Marriage is a norm in modern society and is a tradition in many ancient cultures. The western world’s positive views of marriage are shown in our bridal magazines, glamorous weddings, and countless chick flicks. In American culture, marriages are centered on the idea of love, and arranged marriages go against our constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness. Some fail to realize that how a marriage came to be is not as big a factor in oppression as is the culture surrounding the couple. ‘Clothes’ by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is about Sumita, a girl from an Indian village, who finds herself in a marriage that is loving but confining. ‘Growing My Hair Again’ by Chika Unigwe is about Nneka, a Nigerian native, who finds herself in a marriage that is abusive and confining. While both stories show two completely different marriages, they both portrayed a common theme that marriage is a shackle that gives women an imbalance of power and a lack of freedom.
Both Sumita’s and Nneka’s marriages begin with a sacrifice that only they and not their husbands are expected to make. Somesh has been living in America, so after the ceremony, Sumita quickly has to leave India to meet him to start their lives in America. This means she must leave behind her own family to live with his. Similarly, Nneka is robbed of her life before marriage, despite her being educated and beautiful; those very advantages become burdens the day she marries. She has earned a college degree in sociology, but this is considered bad luck when she is married; her mother-in-law blames it for Nneka’s lack of children saying, ‘I warned Okpala that college destroys their wombs with all that knowledge’ (Unigwe 81). Nneka sees her beauty, specifically her hair, as the reason for her mother-in-law’s intense hatred, claiming she ‘has always been jealous of it’ (Unigwe 76). This becomes such a problem that Okpala bans her from going to the salon whilst his mother visits.
This thievery wasn’t entirely the fault of the husbands, but often by the expectations put on the women by society and gender roles. When Sumita hears the news that she must leave her family, she, heartbroken, expresses her family’s expectations of her saying, ‘A married woman belongs to her husband, her in-laws’; this idea that a woman must conform in marriage is ingrained in Indian society, and the reaction is often just like Sumita’s: ‘Hot seeds of tears pricked my eyelids at the unfairness of it’ (Divakaruni 274). Nneka’s whole marriage becomes centered on this ‘unfairness’ as her skills waste away; as she spends her days ‘making sure [Okpala’s] food [is] served on time. His clothes clean and ironed. The house tidied and welcoming’ (Unigwe 80).
Each story tells of two entirely different marriages in two different parts of the world. Sumita’s marriage is arranged, just like all the other girls in her village in India. She marries a working man in America who owns a 7-Eleven convenience store that’s struggling, and they spend their time trying to save enough money to buy their own house. Somesh is vulnerable and spontaneous, a new type of person than Sumita had never experienced before. She describes Somesh saying, ‘His face, with two vertical lines between the brow, looked young, apprehensive, in need of protection. I’d never seen that on a man’s face before’ (Divakaruni 276). Their relationship is still confining, despite Somesh’s wishes to allow his wife to experience the American lifestyle; his parents closely make sure that she follows tradition. Sumita says inwardly, ”like a good Indian wife I must never address my husband by his name. Where even in our bed we kiss guiltily, uneasily’Sometimes I laugh to myself, thinking how ironic it is that after all my fears about America, my life has turned out to be no different from Deepali’s or Radha’s’ (Divakaruni 278). Overall, Sumita loves her husband as shown when she says, ‘Father had been right, he was a good man, my husband, a kind, patient man’ (Divakaruni 274). In fact, she feels ‘luckier than [she] had any right to be’ (Divakaruni 274).
On the other hand, Nneka dated her husband for five weeks before they decided to marry, meeting him at his boutique and inviting him to her graduation party in exchange for him gifting her a beautiful, expensive dress. Okpala is a rich man, with a successful boutique, and a large villa house. Whether he wooed her at the beginning or not, Nneka soon finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage, saying on her wedding night after she refused to sleep with Okpala: ‘I saw flashes of lightning as Okpala pummeled me. And when he dragged me naked to bed, all I could see was this huge darkness that had started to consume me’ (Unigwe 78). Unlike Sumita, Nneka fears her husband and becomes ‘adept at avoiding Okpala’s busy hands’ (Unigwe 80).
The deaths of their husbands give both women a realization of a new-found freedom. Somesh dies after being shot at his store, and Sumita is left inconsolable. Tradition says that she should go back to India with her in-laws and continue being their daughter, aka servant. Even with her husband, Sumita did not get to experience America fully. She compares her situation to ‘a scene inside a glass paperweight’small’cold unyielding edges’watching helplessly as America rushes by’ (Divakaruni 278). She expresses fear of going back to India’s patriarchal society: ‘That’s when I know I cannot go back’Because all over India, at this very moment, widows in white saris are bowing their veiled heads’Doves with cut-off wings’ (Divakaruni 281). For women in Sumita’s position, not even death can free them from marriage’s trapping jaws; they are still tied down, as widows, by their husband’s parents. On her own Sumita aspires to stay in America and fulfill her dreams of truly experiencing the American world she’s surrounded by. Coincidently after losing her husband to a shooter in his boutique, Nneka realizes that through the only son she bore with Okpala, she is safe from being thrown onto the streets by her mother-in-law and can keep her assets. She says it all in the quote, ‘I look beyond her [the mother-in-law] and see my new life stretch ahead of me: a multi-colored wrapper infused with the scent of fresh possibilities’ (Unigwe 81). With Okpala dead, Nneka is ‘an independent woman with [her] own boutique’ (Unigwe 81), and she completes her epiphany that her life will continue better without Okpala by deciding that she can always regrow her hair. After years of walking on eggshells, the death of her husband brings her more fortune than their marriage, it’s no wonder why she begins to laugh.
Despite the differences in the marriages portrayed, Divakaruni and Unigwe both show marriage as a cage that women, especially those that can’t divorce, are freed from by the deaths of their husbands. The marriages of Sumita and Nneka’s are different down to the circumstance, the husband, and the emotion that controlled their marriages. However, both marriages are still confining because marriage is confining. Whether the husband is loved or feared, his absence is what gives the women a true sense of freedom.