Patriarchy in Thailand Family is still here in 2023

Patriarchy in Thailand Family is still here in 2023

In many Thai and Thai-Chinese family, when a women got married, she will become slave in her husband’s family. My mom has been working woman. She completed master’s degree and knowledgeable. When she married, she still worked in a large company, but when she got home (the house of her husband), she had to eat the dirty food left on a large dining table and washed all those dishes like Cinderella. She always threw up because of the dirty food when she got pregnant. At the same time, some men cannot live without sex and had side-chick when his wife could not offer him sexual pleasure.

Fortunately, my father died when I was 1-month old. It is not like in some movie or in Hollywood celebrities’ family. My mom did not get any legacy from her husband, but she got her freedom back. I was raised by single mom.

Nowadays, I do not expect to see soap-opera-like family, as my mom had experienced about 30 years ago. However, lately, I saw them. Both families are Thai-Chinese, living close to my place.

In the first family I saw, the wife has to do all housework, washing, cooking, and cleaning. She is also educated and has full-time job in office, 40 hours a week. Other family members have cars, but she does not. All of those men, who have cars, have never bought any grocery or food, but it is her job to buy foods for everyone every day. She has to carry many heavy bags while she rides the bus and walks from bus stop to the house. She does all these things for her husband and his family. His mom and his dad did not give her birth. She has no time to go back to her own home to take care of her actual mom and dad.

For the second family, similarly, the wife has to live with her husband’s family. She has to take care of his mom and dad, even she is single child. His mom and dad have a change to stay with their family and their sons, while her mom and dad don’t have that chance. She sent them to nursing home, and she has monthly paid to nursing home with her own income.

I feel sorry every time I see both women, I talked about. I cannot help, even I know the problem. Both women have full-time job. I know they have ability to live by themselves without any man, but they still serve their husbands’ family like being a slave. Out of few neighbors I know, two of them are obviously patriarchal. Men oppress women, older women (his mom) also oppress younger women (his wife), and women accept to be oppressed. And to accept this, the society calls them good women.