I have an immutable morning schedule that I must follow to the T if I want to make it to the office on time. I wake up at 8.50am, pull an outfit together in one and a half minutes, shower for the length of two songs (five if it’s hair-wash day), brush my teeth for two minutes and apply eyeliner and Benetint in five minutes. I do all of this with military precision to squeeze in those extra 45 minutes of snooze to make up for the three hours of reverse bedtime procrastination from the previous night. But there’s an entire row of missing blanks between my stirring from sleep and walking out the door: ironing my clothes, packing my lunch and snacks, lining up footwear options, prepping my office bag, making sure my AirPods have enough juice, giving the Uber driver directions. These are dutifully filled in by my partner.
My husband and I wed five years ago after a decade-long friendship which culminated in a romance that neither of us had anticipated. I was the antithesis of the ideal daughter-in-law that generations of women in my family—mother, sibling, cousins, aunts, grandmothers—had tried and failed to mould me into. I couldn’t cook a single dish, I woke up after lunch on weekends, I liked my solitude and I wasn’t particularly interested in how a household was run. After draining my social battery at the office, all I wanted to do when I returned home was watch a show, read a book or game in silence until I was adequately recharged. Subconsciously, I knew I was in for a talking-to about chipping in at home or being more involved at some point, but it never came. In fact, to date, my mother-in-law constantly tells me how proud she is of my career and we often dissect my pieces at the dinner table as my husband and father-in-law clean up after us.
In 2024, men needn’t receive brownie points for helping their wives with chores. But women who are empowered by the men in their lives to not only share the load but shed the load altogether? That’s hot. Especially in South Asian families where domestic labour is so intricately intertwined with womanhood that attempting to isolate the two often raises questions about one’s character and upbringing. It matters not whether the wife works longer hours than her husband or whether the onus of bringing up a child is entirely on a stay-at-home mum. In most Indian households, gender roles are clearly demarcated: the man is the breadwinner; the woman prepares the curry to be eaten with the bread that is won. Perhaps this is why my relatives who were visiting us were gobsmacked into silence when my partner retreated into the kitchen to ensure dinner was coming along well while I entertained them in the living room. Each time he emerged from the kitchen with a dish in his hands, the women’s faces grew more shocked and awestruck, while the men got progressively angrier and guiltier.
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The ‘supportive husband’ memo may have been rejected by the men in my family, but it thankfully seems to have done a successful circumnavigation of the globe this year. And nowhere was it on better display than at the Paris Olympics. Italian judo practitioner Christian Parlati pulled his Belgian judoka girlfriend Gabriella Willems into his arms after she bagged a bronze medal, even though his own Olympic journey had been cut short on the same day. When France’s Manon Apithy-Brunet claimed the gold in the women’s fencing sabre individual event, her husband and fellow fencer Boladé Apithy, who won bronze in the men’s sabre team event, bolted to the mat, took his wife’s face in his hands and kissed it, flung her over his shoulder and ran an exuberant victory lap while they both grinned incredulously. After leaping for gold at the women’s long jump final Tara Davis-Woodhall sprinted to the stands to celebrate with her husband, Hunter Woodhall, who joyously exclaimed, “Babe, you’re the Olympic champion,” while tenderly holding on to her waist. For some of these men, the fact that they had lost or that the women in their lives had outperformed them was of little consequence. They were simply proud to bask in the victory of their partners.
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Beyond sports, too, men are showing up for women like never before. When Kamala Harris threw her hat in the ring for the US presidency, her husband, Doug Emhoff, stepped up to the plate to front fundraisers and rallies as well as volunteer at events while she discharged her duties as vice president and built her campaign strategy. If Harris had made it to the White House, Emhoff would have become the first-ever First Gentleman of the United States and would’ve been expected to host state dinners and represent his wife at ceremonial occasions—responsibilities traditionally associated with women. Ketanji Brown Jackson, who became the first Black woman to serve as a Justice of the US Supreme Court in 2022, counts her husband, Patrick Jackson, among her loudest cheerleaders in her memoir, Lovely One, launched in August this year. The gastrointestinal surgeon was a regular fixture at her book tour events, just as he was at her senate judiciary hearings two years ago, rushing from long nights on call to the courtroom to proudly—and tearfully—watch his wife deftly tackle the barrage of racist questions aimed at her. Just so we’re clear, women aren’t always expecting their partners to bring them the moon and stars. Sometimes, it’s enough to watch the men we love let down their guard for us and do things out of their wheelhouse. It explains Katrina Kaif’s appreciative giggle in the background of an Instagram video featuring Vicky Kaushal swatching and raving about a new range of lipsticks launched by Kay Beauty to a reindeer plush toy.
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I opened my DMs to invite more stories of supportive spouses and was expecting my inbox to be filled with effusions about men being applauded for doing the bare minimum. Instead, I received beautiful messages that made them seem like characters from a Nicholas Sparks novel. One man took charge of transcribing all of his writer wife’s interviews because she hated listening to the sound of her own voice. Another would drive back from work in the middle of the day to take care of their newborn so his wife could step out to conduct her workshops. Another would charge into the room with snacks to free his wife from the clutches of a post-lunch slump during her afternoon online classes. There were heartwarming accounts of men who had moved countries so that their wives wouldn’t have to switch jobs; men who had packed their wives off on solo trips for some much-needed R&R post-delivery; men who gave their wives the time and space to pursue side hustles because they didn’t like their main gigs.
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Tanya Vasunia, a published researcher and psychologist, attributes this upgraded model of a supportive husband—especially in South Asian cultures—to the sharp spike in divorce rates. “So many men walk into therapy saying that they want to work on themselves because they don’t want to get divorced,” she says. “They see their parents living separate lives even though they’re still married on paper and they want to do everything to ensure they don’t end up the same way.” Is there, ultimately, some truth to the hackneyed aphorism ‘happy wife, happy life’? The proof is in the pudding (also made by my husband).
This story appears in Vogue India’s November-December 2024 issue, now on stands. Subscribe here
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