Suits Don’t Make A Gentleman, What Matters Is His Respect For Everyone

In India, we often judge people by their clothes. This story is of my husband who came to see me in denims, checkered shirt, and casual shoes.

Yes, it was an arranged marriage but we asked for a year to know each other before marriage.

The man came in a casual outfit and he had a beard. This was a family get-together called by my father to invite his future son-in-law to take his daughter away for a new beginning.

He asked me before coming if it was required to attend the event in formals. I said, “You can present yourself the way you feel comfortable.”

I was not wearing a saree either. My relatives started gossiping about the way he came wearing sneakers and jeans to see my family.

My family and I appreciated that he attended the function in spite of his hectic work schedule.

After two years of marriage, I can say that my husband is purely a gentleman, though one who hardly wears formal attire.

The first and that last time I saw him in a suit, was during our marriage.

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Yes, he has a beard and does everything which the so-called gentleman of our country do not do.

He treats me like his best friend

I mostly do kitchen work like cooking and he cleans the house. He does not treat me like his wife; rather, he treats me like his best friend.

Coming back to the denim part, he was judged by my relatives as a bad choice by my family for me. They were concerned about his salary and called us hopeless for not knowing his salary.

That year, I had to hear a lot about my husband to-be. I kept quiet, ignored everything as I knew the person with whom I was getting married.

I realised people talk out of their habit, people talk because of their ego, and we are not getting married for anyone but for ourselves. I understood that my husband was a gentleman from the way he spoke to me.

His clothes don’t define him, his attitude does

He never saw me as an object to satisfy his pleasure. I understood that he was a gentleman in denim when he addressed the waiter in a restaurant politely.

A dress, the skin colour, the beard, or the name is secondary when you meet a true gentleman.

A gentleman is not someone who wears formal clothes and shoes. He is someone who treats all with respect.

You cannot be a gentleman by just worshipping a God or reciting loud mantras.

You should have the inner strength to be kind to everyone, to love unconditionally, to understand, to listen and not judge, and to conduct your life peacefully.

For those who think that only wealth can make someone gentle or your religion makes you gentle or your education, you have not understood the reality of life.

We have so many cases of domestic violence, of child and women abuse in our country from the so-called gentlemen in their formal attires, presenting themselves in the purest form, clean shaven and asking for dowry, and treating someone as a liability.

The daughter, often regarded as Goddess Lakshmi, is traded in the marriage in the form of dowry. Literally, this means that Goddess Lakshmi is traded between two families.

Image source: a still from the web series Little Things (YouTube)

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