Dissection Of A Myth !

According to a handful of political leaders:

“Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman.” President George W. Bush

“The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife.” Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle

“I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages.” Former President Bill Clinton

“Marriage between a man and a woman is vital to the stability and preservation of our society in which a father and a mother raise and nurture children.”Senator Rick Santorum

According to a research:

Marriage is uniquely beneficial to society because it is the foundation of the family and the basic building block of society.

• It brings significant stability and meaning to human relationships
• It remains the ideal for the raising of children.
• It plays an important role in transferring culture and civilization into future generations.

Marriage is not merely a private contract, but a social institution of great public concern.

According to me:

I agree with all that has been and is being said about marriage. Marriage is a social/legal contract and a scared union, but there is one word I would like to add to all the definitions of marriage given and that word is love.

Love is an important ingredient for any marriage to be cooked well. Sometimes, marriage follows love and sometimes love follows marriage. Either way, the presence of love is crucial in the most ancient of legal contracts, i.e. marriage.

Dissection of a myth:

I had once met this young European man, who came to visit my country thinking that the stories of arranged marriages, which he heard happened here, were myths. I still remember the way his jaw had dropped when I told him that ours was in fact a culture where there have always been two broad types of marriages, namely affair marriage and (yes) arranged marriage.

Affair marriage (or love marriage) is the marriage that not everybody approves of (in our culture). It begins with two people seeing each other, and then letting the parents know about their love affair in due time, or (more often) getting caught during dating (in my culture love affairs are always kept secret from parents!) After the parents find out, there are three things that generally happen:
• Parents (halfheartedly most of the time) agree to marry the lovebirds
• Parents refuse to give consent and emotionally blackmail their children out of the relationship (!)
• Those lovebirds who don’t want to fall prey to the emotional blackmailing, elope (!!)

On the other hand, the much talked about arranged marriage (AKA settled marriage) is the type where the parents select a partner (usually with the help of a matchmaker) for their son or daughter, completely curtailing the process of courtship.

As per my deduction, the custom of arranged marriages began in the ancient times when the girls had no human rights whatsoever apart from eating and breathing. That was also the era when they used to be married off at a very young age. I have been told that during my great grandmother’s time the girl and the man (it was a requirement for the bridegroom to be at least fifteen years older than the bride) weren’t even allowed to meet each other until they were married. So basically, people used to marry complete strangers of their guardians’ choice. With time, the harshness of arranged marriages mellowed down a little. Since the last ten to fifteen years, people have been able to meet and speak to the person their parents fixed for them to be married to. More recently, an improvised version of the arranged marriage has shown face in our society. It’s called affair-turned-arranged marriage. It is a healthy mix of arranged marriage and affair marriage, and seems to be the most workable kind for our progressing yet family oriented society.

There have always been so many debates on ‘which is better, arranged or affair?’ that it has now become a bit of a cliché. I am not going to get into that debate at all. My purpose is only to focus on why the concept of arranged marriage is so unbelievable. The non-believers usually express their disbelieve in the form of questions. The questions are as follows:
• How can you marry someone you don’t love?
• How can you marry someone you don’t even know?
• How can you just start living with a complete stranger?
• What if you never learn to love your partner? By the way, is love something that you learn to do?
• How can you be sure you will definitely hit compatibility in arranged marriage?
• How can you be sure you will be happy?
• Is it not a reckless wager?

It can really be unnerving to think that you will have to share your life, your blanket and even your bathroom with someone who you haven’t even started to befriend. I know of girls who went into chronic state of depression as soon as they heard their marriage had been fixed. I even know of men who found the lengthy process of arranged marriage to be too much to bear. Yet arranged marriages are more common in our society than anything else.

Arranged marriages are existent because, firstly, we live in a society where a marriage is perceived as not only a bond between two individuals, but between two families as well. As it is understood as a bond between two families, the parents take it in their hands to choose which family their son/daughter should be married into. Secondly, a lot of people choose not to get into a relationship (commonly known as love affair) at all, so when the time comes, it is solely up to their parents to select a good family for them to marry into.

Amazingly enough, these arranged marriages (which seem quite reckless to many) seem to work and work well. The girls who spend their days in depression and melancholy (on hearing that they are to be married) can’t stop flushing and giggling once they are married. The men appear quite pleased too, too pleased actually. How things fall in place so quickly is a wonder! According to the wizened lot, in arranged marriages the compromises, sacrifices and adjustments (which are age-old conditions for a sustainable marriage) come about more smoothly because unlike in affair marriages, there isn’t the burden of ‘prior expectations’. Also, the ‘charm’ lasts longer as the new couple (or rather strangers) discovers each other (both physically and mentally) slowly and steadily.

I suppose these are the reasons why (as statistical data has it) the arranged marriages tend to last longer than affair marriages.

In conclusion:

Simply put, arranged marriages are not myths. They are non fiction! They are a social phenomenon. Beating all the arguments against and establishing all arguments in favour, arranged marriages are prevalent in our culture. No matter how odd it may seem to modernity, arranged marriages will take time (long time) to leave the premises of our part of the world if at all.

Case closed!