Love,marriage, Love marriage….Changing definitions with changing times!

Last time I wrote this article I got really confused and bored and I wrapped it up abruptly and with nonsensical conclusion, I think. I am sure many who read this article also felt that way. So here I go again, It started some what like this.

Some one once asked me, which one do you prefer? Love marriage or an arranged marriage?
I found it really funny? its like asking which one do you prefer? getting murdered or suicide? :). Right?

Let me make a brief contour of  Love, Marriage, Love marriage , changing definitions of these with changing times in changing Indian community.

Well, starting with, what is this marriage?

• First dictionary said,Marriage is state in which a man and woman are formally united for the purpose of living together.
• Second one said, holy union of man and woman.

And then passing on to what love is?  All though scientific, social and cultural  definitions of love differ,  abstract concept of  love could usually be referred to as a strong, ineffable feeling towards another individual.   Love is all about a range of human  emotions  and experiences related to the senses  of affection and emotions related to them. All though  love could be related to, mercy, compassion, concern, care and infinitely more feelings could be associated with this word, I would  stick on to one definition concerned to this blog article.

I  always believed that   to make marriage and love synonymous, to make them sourish and nourish with  the mutually common  motives, and  to make them comply with and comprise of  similar human emotions,  marriage has to be based on love. Where two individuals share common ideas about the life and things that matter for the future life of their own.  But few believe, its a notion, or may be a superstition or myth or may be a hallucination. Developing new opinions  of new generation or may be  self proclaimed  practical  smart people also  state that, marriage and love have nothing in common, they say they could be as far apart as the apposite poles.  They add, no doubt  some marriages have been the result of love, however  they did not end with love,  which explains  non existence of love,  They say  there is nothing called love. I who still believed that Love does exist  however thought love could  assert itself only in marriage while ago  and could hardly  figure out as to why people ever got separated after all ? Did they fall out of love?  For that they say  then, not that people who stayed together were still in love,   much rather it is  because those people couldn’t outgrow a conventional social set ups. People often said I read too many romantic novels and watch too many romantic movies.

But then my query is, what is the purpose of marriage? why do couple choose to live together?

My Impression was, there should be a purpose to get married to a particular person. Like you like being with  that person, share common passions and ideology and your sense of humor compatible with another. Then  go ahead and bind themselves in a marriage. Otherwise no offense, but in fact arranged marriage is a compromise from day one. Because you choose to get  married to some  random one, because you yourself   never found one with whom your wavelength gets compatible. Then they say compatibility could be found  out by talking to one another with in a bunch of people you allow to meet. I thought, ( for people who work with SQL) it would sound some what like, select groom from table_name  where qualities IN(profession, passion, ideology…. etc; Well Not IN could also be used.

Jokes apart, but I have heard  they say,  love is nothing but a feeling of  attraction and  once it gets  over, feeling of love will be over too. If its only about finding compatibility, it could be one among the  entries of matrimony sites or some family friends or friends of theirs and so on…..   The biggest justification being, from ancient times, there have been by and large only arranged marriages in India and the couples got married very early in  their age and they stayed married longer than any couples on  any other part of the world. In fact world  wide survey conducted by a leading news channel  did reveal this fact to be accurate.

As a whole they finally  state,   vastly growing economic independence  of woman is leading us towards growing divorce. It has given rise very low sense of mutual sacrifices and tolerance.  I have read in many news papers and magazines where it was implied too while explaining  growing  divorce rate. Its also been found that, most of the divorces are initiated by women. Then I couldn’t help but think that in that case, marriage was getting saved only because woman was dependent economically and was putting up with all sorts of seasons and was being tolerant. I don’t want to turn this discussion into feminist arguments. I leave the conclusion open. However I  cannot restrain myself from saying in that case marriage smells somewhat like a financial  agreement and a settlement to inevitable, that one had  to go through for one party and   for  the satisfaction of parental family and a social opinion for another. It sounded more of a family mergers rather than heart mergers.

That doesn’t mean I am in favor of initiating divorces for reasons like, husband forced me to eat while I was not hungry. I certainly do not support woman’s initiation towards  being intolerant and arrogant. However I do suggest,  its time men and women both put in effort to save their relationship and grow mutual respect and be tolerant about  each others mistakes.

Definition and  needs of marriage are subjected to change from time to time, though its core principle remained same from antiquity, The mutual respect and trust.

One more thing that amuses me is, when children are said to be pillars of marriage. Getting married though you don’t love isn’t  good enough then you decide to fall in love. Have kids further pushing yourself to love each other. Its like implanting Compulsion disorder into adults.

I read somewhere, it said, people in love agree to get get married thats love marriage , and people who get married, agree to fall in love thats arranged marriage. If only this beautiful saying tirns true for everyone. I wish and  hope it does.