How marriage changes a woman’s finances

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Editor's note: It was only when I got married that I realized that I was an edge case when it came to personal finance. I’d grown up in a fairly typical Indian family setup with an earning father and a homemaker mother. But what set us apart was that we were also a household that discussed finances on an everyday basis. My father ensured that we were all given individual bank accounts and taught how to operate them, and my mother made it a point to drill the importance of having one’s own source of income and not being dependent on anyone for money into her daughters’ heads. A few weeks ago, a survey by Tata AIA Life Insurance revealed that 97% of Indian women have their financial decisions taken by a male family member like their father or husband. What’s more, the survey also revealed that 56% of women were “not allowed” to take financial decisions, despite being earning members of the family. The truth is that marriage is not an equal partnership—not in India, not when it comes to women, …