The Old Ball and Chain’ isn’t just a Prison Break episode. It is a common refrain made by straight men who accuse their wives of being controlling and restricting their freedom. And ‘henpecked husbands’ aren’t planning on liberating their humour from such tired tropes. Not anytime soon.
It’s sad to see how often these ‘jokes’ return to haunt us. A recent viral video on X shows a groom’s male friends break into the confused ‘moye moye’ chorus as he garlands his bride. A cheeky take on the supposed trouble about to befall their friend, it was tone-deaf and downright rude, perhaps ruining the most important moment of the couples’ day.
The idea of marriage being a cage for men has been entrenched in popular media for as long as it has been in our daily vocabulary. Take popular Hindi songs like Zor Ka Jhatka from Action Replayy (2011), which calls marriage ‘umar qaid ki saza’ (lifetime imprisonment) and the 2000 film Joru Ka Ghulam, which literally translates as ‘wife’s slave’. Who hasn’t heard an uncle joke about his wife ‘not letting’ him do fun stuff, even as she strives to make a hot meal for him at that exact moment? As replies to the video on X urged, it is high time we let go of these so-called harmless jokes – rooted in misogyny and rarely representing reality.
Marriage is much more difficult for women. Unsaid but hard-set rules compel them to leave their families and maintain textbook coyness and subservience around pompous husbands and in-laws. How exactly are men at a loss here?
Men don’t really like their wives
Ajay Devgn took a pass at his wife on Koffee with Karan, joking about eagerly awaiting the day Kajol won’t talk to him. How torturous, indeed, to live with a successful, beautiful woman you lovingly chose to marry.
We have seen a version of this in shows like Comedy Nights with Kapil, where TV actor Sumona Chakravarti played Kapil Sharma’s ‘nagging wife’. We also have Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023), where Anubhav Singh Bassi’s character hates his wife’s guts for doting on him and his family. It is almost as if liking their wives is emasculating for some men, and the only way to retain their manhood is to pretend to be annoyed with them. It is humiliating for women and completely erases any semblance of love or connection between a married couple, making it seem like the man never truly wants to be in the relationship.
Moreover, these jokes undermine the struggle married women face in patriarchal societies like India. The most recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that over 31 per cent of the total crimes recorded against women fall under the ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’ category. We still hear of dowry-related harassment and deaths of women, with over 13,000 cases registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act in 2022. If real life were any standard to go by, it would be women joking about marriage being a cage.
There’s some hope, though
Recent years have also shown us stellar examples of the wife-loving husband/boyfriend. Popular media is slowly coming around and realising that many men do indeed love and respect their wives and aren’t ashamed to do so in public.
Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013), Phil Dunphy from Modern Family (2009), and fan favourite Rocky Randhawa from Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) are often applauded for unabashedly loving their significant other. They are not men who hate their wives, make jokes behind their backs, or rue their fates for being ‘stuck’ in the relationship. Their love automatically translates to respect, and admitting that doesn’t make them any less manly.
Ranveer Singh’s Rocky Randhawa is lauded as a ‘green flag’ for the unwavering support he provides to Alia Bhatt’s character, Rani. Even his wife, actor Deepika Padukone, confirmed on Koffee with Karan that she was married to the real-life Rocky Randhawa.
If the institution of marriage can slowly come out of its conventional patriarchal mould, I’m sure Indian men and their sense of humour can too.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)