Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Marriage:A Beautiful Word With An Ugly Meaning?

One takes certain things for granted. One's family for instance. While assuming it to be an integral part of life we often neglect the importance of having a family that helps us take on life's challenges relatively easily. Because the family is made up of our own people whose concern for our pain is genuine and therefore can soothe an anguished soul as nothing else can. A supportive family is that cushion which helps us absorb the shocks and overcome fears, providing fortitude and confidence in the most trying times.

And if the family can be taken for granted, is it any wonder that marriage, which sustains the family is under tremendous pressure. In addition we hear of same sex marriages and live-in relationships as an acceptable alternative to the hitherto satisfactory traditions of social behaviour. An ever-increasing number of the educated youth have started questioning marriage and are contemplating if marriage has outlived its usefulness.That the youth should think so, and become cynical to this extent in their personal lives is indeed indicative of how much the tolerance levels have drooped these days.

The unwritten law in a normal Indian marriage is that the woman must follow the customs of her husband's family. She is supposed to take his name and in some places even her first name is changed as part of the marriage rituals. Thus every trace of her maiden identity is lost forever. Is it correct for a marriage to be so extremely one-sided where it becomes the holy duty of the woman to make all adjustments?

The late Begum Tara Shervani, who shared excellent relations with her daughters-in-law, once said to me that the tussle in a marriage is no less a fight for power than in high political circles with the two most polarised positions being taken by the mother and the wife of the man. Each one feels insecure of the other! The fact however is that both the wife and the mother have their unique places and thus both are important in their own way. She could not have been more judicious.

The present day increase in divorce rates indicates how fragile marriages (where the partners are called jeevan-saathi!) have become. Any relationship needs time and space to mature. The same is true about a marriage. So much depends on it. And yet since life is not an experiment carried out in a science lab or a theorem proved after research in mathematics, there is no one formula to ensure success in a marriage. Life is beautiful because it is forever changing, and hence individual situations demand individual solutions, which in turn demand a level-headed approach, which in turn demands maturity. The success of a marriage may thus be assumed to lie in patience.

Let us realise that there are no perfect situations in life. After all perfection is one of the virtues of God Almighty, while we mortals have been granted the luxury of being always imperfect. So it is perfectly in accordance with Nature that marriages are imperfect. And it helps to remember that marriage is neither an unending tug-of-war where the parties are constantly pulling on the rope to outdo each other, nor is it an auction where the highest bidder vrooms with the groom.

Certainly there are no such situations in real life where one can end with "...and they lived happily ever after." In the continuity called life you just go on from one situation to another, learning and sometimes unlearning things. And although in a society, there is a proper time and place for things to happen, one should have the liberty to decide upon this most important aspect in one's life, where ideally the decision-making should rest on considerations such as love, compatibility and understanding.

But until this can be achieved, families will continue to crumble as they strive for existence.
And marriage will continue to be a beautiful word with an ugly meaning...

Zohra Javed.

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