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Oh for the love of marriages!!!

In India, everyone is either getting married, is married or want to get married. When a girl child is born, parents automatically start worrying about the type of husband she is going to get twenty five years later. When a boy is born they automatically mentally calculate the retirement plan which includes a 'sugran' girl as his sons wife who will be cooking food for them. It is right, it is according to plan, it is what is done in the 'samaj' for past so many years. They did it, their parents did it, so did their parents parents.

There is a strategic programming that undergoes the child brain. They are taught mythological stories of Shravan bal who carried his blind parents to kashi on his shoulders. They are told about Ramayana where Ram obeys his parents and goes into the jungle for 14 years and they are told about Sita and Ram, who were faithful to one another till the end of tides. Mahabharata however is mentioned in passing, where the next incarnation of Ram has an affair with a girl older than him or where he organizes his own sister to run away with Arjun, who in turn was married to a woman, who was a common wife for five people. Phew.

My friend was living in Singapore for last four years and came back to India. Surprised as I was with his visit, I inquired.
'Just came to marry,' he said, 'Mother and father are looking for the bride to be.'
The same mother and father whom you had no time to meet in last four years. Obviously his parents and every parent they met thereafter were proud of their son, like an example set up.
As questionable his attitude was, that all suddenly he decided to come back, I realized he was physiologically incapable of taking his own decision and needed his parents help to decide. Also, he would have no value in Singapore but in India his value doubled as a foreign returned husband.

Indians generally fall into common categories. Some feminist who believe in freedom and upliftment of woman are very vocal about the concept of arrange marriage, where a woman is not given a choice at all.
Some modern Indians who claim, 'We do give our child complete freedom and he/she can choose from any girl we ask him too...' believe that love is important but so is caste, culture and tradition.
Some Indians are of the opinion that there is no marriage without love and these people, usually the modern Shahrukh Khan loving, 'friends' enjoying people believe that arrange marriage is the rot that is rotting the indian society. This blasphemous idea is not accepted by the tradition loving, caste based Indian parent who still dread the habits of people in different cast. This indifferent results in creating a confusing and never ending battle between arrange marriage and love marriage and both the sides do not realize that they are fighting the never ending battle against the question of 'marriage'.

A girl who graduated with me in college, got her marriage fixed in her final year. Obviously she couldn't say no as it was recession time and there were less jobs out there. She was systematically programmed that if she cannot get a job she had to marry, that was the plan all along.

If we look back in history, marriage is fist time mentioned in vishnu puran in the story of Parshurama. Parshurama on seeing his mother in love with another man, beheads her for she broke the law of Shvetaketu. Shvetaketu one day saw his mother in arms of another man, horrified he complaint to his father. His father simply said, that woman in the world are free to be with anyone they wish to. Realizing that this would create serious question on parenthood, he started the concept of marriage, where a man and woman are legally bound to each other and cannot see other people unless the partner wishes it. Here Shvetaketu was talking about physical marriage and not emotional marriage. In modern world, physical marriage has nothing to do with the legal marriage and that is not the topic of the post.

Scientifically speaking, marriage is the unification of souls. People feel the emotional void and need a companion to share this with. Biologically a man is comfortable with another female and a female is comfortable with a man. However, this void is temporary, and sooner or later what remains is ego, hungry ego that feeds on dominance over the partner and the world, 'adjust' comes into the marriage.

In olden days there was a social gap where the entire house hold revolved around 'samsara' where the woman was always the housewife and men worked in the society. Now, woman have stepped outside the house, they work shoulder to shoulder with men. The emotional gap that resulted in marriage is fulfilled with the office colleagues during lunch or coffee breaks, resulting in more and more tension in married life.

Obviously I am grossly wrong, I cannot generalize the concept, agreed. But you cannot disagree that 60% of the marriages, love or arranged, are bound to fail and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The concept of marriage is build on emotions, which are fragile, bound to crack and uncertain. The only thing you can do is you can accept it or reject it.








P.s. Some interesting views on marriage by other blogs.
http://www.themisfitgirl.com/2011/03/love-marriages-love-marriages.html by the Misfitgirl
http://unthinkunwind.blogspot.com/2011/03/marriage-mirage.html by Rohini
http://phoenixritu.com/2011/03/marriage-the-great-indian-scam/ by Ritu
http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/marriages-are-sold-to-women-in-a-glossy-cover/ by IHM

Comments

  1. I so agree - marriages fail! That is because, we as humans fail to make it work, our differences and our egos ensure that that happens. And our society's pressure on young people of a certain age to get married does not help the cause either

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Ritu
    We cannot control our emotions and the thats the length and breath of every marriage. There will always be a expiry date on the marriage, after that the term, 'adjustment', 'make it work' comes in picture.

    Once the emotional void is fulfilled, egos take over and the society so far is not yet grown to understand the human mind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. u r right...great post....
    relation depends on two persons...married or not...when two persons understands each other no one really needs to adjust...when the understanding is not there the egos comes in...
    i personally feel that marriage was made by some insecure person to make it tough for his woman to run away with sm1 else :-P

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marriage if it is not a social compulsion but a personal choice is not a bad idea at all.

    What I see as wrong is the expectation that every Indian must marry by a certain age, only to someone the entire extended family approves of, with compulsory exchange of gifts, cash, dowry, following rigid customs, (often derogatory to one of the persons getting married).

    And once married then no matter how unhappy their lives are, they must not dream of a second chance in life. Let the children watch abuse, violence, frustration, bitterness, anger, tears etc as a regular part of normal life.

    Also taken for granted is the idea that the female partner will relocate to the male partner's house and get to work at pleasing them all. She is given no choice in this. How right is that?

    The male partner has the responsibility to make sure that she shows respect and love to his family AND also that he does not show too much respect, love or consideration to this new family member, otherwise he is seen as a traitor - and labelled a JKG (Joru Ka Gulaam).

    Who benefits from this system? We are told it is good for senior citizens - because they get a care giver in their old age (the daughter in law).
    What about those senior citizens who don't have any sons? They must abort female foetuses?
    Obviously the system is flawed.

    Choice marriages, retirement plans, Nuclear families where parents of either or both the partners can visit or live with their children and respect for the happiness of each and every member in the society - by letting them choose if and when they marry, divorce, have children and who they live with etc. might yet save this society from a future like 'Matrubhoomi'.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gosh what's with all these marriage posts all around? Pssst stop making me feel so old Sid and gang!

    P.S: Itni aasani se main shaadi nahin karnewali. :P

    P.P.S: I hope my boyfriend doesn't see this. :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. where did u get percentage from, Life & specially indian life runs on balance, in india marriages are based on family values & morals, that why the toleration level is higher, see marriage is an exciting thing, don't spoil the mood for those who believe in it truly & completely & about to gte married, life itself is an adjustment, may it be with another partner anyway ! i think arranged marriages are great of india, & everyone can make it work with the essential love component.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Sunil
    The percentage came from the credible sources, ngos working on relationships.
    Here are some statistics,

    //In 2006, Bangalore, the IT hub of India it was recorded that 1,246 cases of divorce were filed in the court that pertain to the IT sector exclusively. It has been estimated Mumbai has shot up to 4,138 in 2007 while cities that are acknowledged for their cultural richness and social values like Kolkata and Chennai, are no less behind. Agro based states like Punjab and Haryana are now seeing an increase of 150% of divorce rate since the last decade. Kerala, known to be the most literate state has experienced an increase of divorce rate by 350% in the last 10 years. //

    My point exactly, the fact that family values and morals are higher which crush the individual freedom. I am not trying to spoil the mood for anyone re, but i hate the concept of adjustment for anyone.
    Lets talk about thus exactly 7 years after you get married, if the love component exist ok?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Siddesh,

    The statistics you have shown is scary. But we have a cool nature to assume that problems are of others, and I do have nothing. And if I do have one, i will suppress it as a bully. But i think, it is time we should think about these problems before it is late, very seriously.

    Even if I or you do not have a problem, there are many who have these kind of problems.

    Actually, I started a blog on this topic.

    ReplyDelete
  9. you are scaring me!!! don't tell me that the rest 40% of marriage includes our grand-parent's.
    Even without marriage, the factors of ego and compatibility comes into picture ... seen lot of heart breaks around.
    but the arranged marriages that i have seen in this part of the country totally scares me... you knw they get the ph numbers only after engagement!!! imagine that...

    ReplyDelete
  10. There is difference between adjusting for the sake of person we love and adjusting for the person whom we hardly know . . . . Adjustment should be more of a choice not a mere compulsion

    ReplyDelete
  11. I likes it :) especially filling of emotional gap funda! so true, one cant escape it and one cannot fulfill all emotional need!brilliant writing all together!

    ReplyDelete

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