The Kind of Flag He'd Want to Marry

While this sounds like something your cynical aunt would post on Facebook, it tells an uncomfortable truth about how marriage choices in our society play out when the ‘right’ timing outweighs connection.

The title isn't about actual flags though; it's about how women become symbols to be displayed when convenient, representations of virtue and status that look perfect behind glasses but aren't necessarily the ones you'd stay up until 4 AM discussing your existential dread with. We're raised high during family functions as proof of a man's success, then shoved away when the performance ends, all while being told this is what love looks like in the real world.

"Forever"

The myth of forever is clear in those early days when he'd look at you and say "Tu hi meri shab hai, subah hai" and you'd actually believe you were his entire universe. But didn’t you turn out to be just a placeholder until something more convenient came along?

Here's what nobody warns you about in your early 20’s: Men rarely marry the woman who “sets their soul on fire”, the one who challenges them to be better versions of themselves, the one who moves them out of their clocks of superficial modesty; instead, they marry whoever happens to be standing there when their internal biological clock—yes, they have one too—or their external social and familial factors, start screaming that “It's time to settle down” and when the pressure to check off that marriage box before their friends' kids start graduating preschool starts agonizing them.

The Modesty Hook

Let's talk about this "ideal woman" narrative that gets shoved down a woman's throat: soft-spoken, agreeable, dressed like she raided her mother's closet, the kind of woman who becomes a mirror reflecting her husband's achievements rather than having her own individual identity. It's brilliantly manipulative when you think about it. So basically it promotes control in the name of virtue, suppression in the name of tradition. And suddenly half the female population are trophies that men can polish and display when that ideal company comes over at their doorstep.

The Convenience Store Approach to Lifetime Commitment

I've collected these stories like postcards from women who have lived this pattern before: It all begins with months of deep conversations until dawn, inside jokes that nobody else would understand, plans for adventures that seemed inevitable hollow promises of being in love. Until suddenly he's engaged to someone else, someone who "fits the family mold" and won't embarrass his mother at the temple. Someone just different enough from his mother to prove his adulthood but similar enough to keep the peace at family dinners.

In all this blasphemy, the woman he actually loved gets left wondering if she laughed too loudly, spoke her mind too often in mixed company, wasn’t pretty enough or committed the cardinal sin of having career ambitions that extended beyond supporting his dreams from the side lines. A 2024 study on marriage timing and social clock theory found that deviations from the expected marriage timelines (particularly ages 24-27) correlates with the higher rates of post-marital depression, suggesting that this pressure to marry "on schedule" makes unions built on timing rather than genuine compatibility.

Even supposedly progressive men often default to the "safe" option, because God forbid you marry someone who might expect you to examine your privilege or grow as a person rather than just age into your father's personality.

For these men, long term commitments are with whoever demands the least emotional labour, is compatible enough to laugh at their sexist jokes among their groups , whoever won't disrupt their FIFA nights with the boys, who won't expect them to consider relocating for her career. Research from 2024 on educational assortative mating reveals that despite women surpassing men in education globally, marriage patterns still reflect traditional preferences where men often choose partners who won't challenge established gender hierarchies.

Break Free from the Flag Pole

The bitter irony of the title will hit differently when you realize we're expected to be these perfect flags—modest, ideal, symbols of male achievement to be hoisted high at social gatherings—because society still treats marriage like a display case rather than a partnership between two individuals who chose each other, flaws and all.

But why should we settle for being symbols when we could be setting the world on fire? Men might choose the convenient match who's modest and ready according to their timeline rather than waiting for the one who makes their heart race, but this short changes everyone involved, turning what should be adventures in growth into arrangements of mutual settling.

In my own observations, I've watched friends marry for convenience only to spend years yearning for the passion they had once abandoned, scrolling through old photos at 2 AM and wondering what might have been if they'd chosen courage over comfort. If only they knew love isn't about flags or symbols or checking boxes on society's timeline; it's about choosing someone who challenges you to evolve even when that means waiting longer than your parents would prefer, even when it means defending your choice at all those overcritical family gatherings.

When we stop treating women like flags to be collected and start seeing them as humans with their own dreams and different personalities, we might actually find partnerships that are mutually sustainable and loving. When they stop treating an independent woman as a menace to their ill-formed societies and rules and start accepting them as normal humans, then maybe we’ll successfully avoid relationships that simply check the right boxes on paper while leaving everyone involved emotionally starved.