And here's another post on marriage. No fascination for this topic but can't help it - this is the wedding season. There are invites, lots of them -- from neighbours, friends, relatives etc etc for ring ceremony, wedding ceremony, after wedding ceremony etc etc.
Weddings are good fun. You get to dress up nicely and eat your heart out at the host's expenses (which by the way is a lot these days given everyone's obsession with wasting money...a separate post on that later)...and then criticise the feast too!
Anyway, I was talking about the wedding invites. Almost all of them say the host would like your blessings "as the couple enters the bond of marriage continuing their journey of love and companionship". Now that sounds very sweet and all but how many of such couples you know actually share that companionship? With every invite I get very curious about knowing the story behind "Will you marry me?".
I am not seeing all of them with the same glass but something about most of them saddens me. I am not against marriage per se. But I am pro it only for the right reasons. I accord great significance to reason. I have met very few couples who say they want to be with each other and marriage is only incidental. Half the pairs I know decided to marry because they were 'ready-to-be-married' years old and there was pressure from both families. Or because of the pressure they chose the person since it's known risks are better than stepping in unknown waters! After a relationship of 6-7 years, given a choice, they'd rather not be together but being together is better than going for an arranged marriage. In certain cases, one of them doesn't want to hurt the other and gets into the marriage for the sake of so many years spent together. His/her heart may belong elsewhere but this 'seems the right thing to do'. Marriage for the sake of it, in short. What happened to love? When and why did people stop caring about the love and companionship the wedding invites glitteringly talk of?
The marriages happen anyway. There's a honeymoon period. And then what follows is the most predictable part of the story. Boredom. No prizes for guessing the solution the not-at-all-in-love-but-what-can-we-do couple thinks of....and is advised so by everyone around. A baby, of course. I almost burnt my tongue and my eyes almost popped out when, while having coffee, a friend of mine (about 26 years old) said this: "In arranged marriage it's still okay since the couple needs time to understand each other, but in love marriage the couple should definitely have kids within a couple of years since boredom starts setting in."
Reproduce life just because you are bored of each other? Very amusing! That about explains the size of population in our country. The ability to reproduce life is a miracle in its own right. It's unfortunate it is belittled as an excuse to kill boredom. Poor child comes into the world with such a huge burden of entertaining his/her parents. And s/he grows up to see them and their relationship completely out of love, together only for his/her sake.
Does it sound too quixotic to say that people should marry for right reasons: true companionship and love (whatever the word means)? And bring a new life into the world only to let him/her grow in that peace. Sure, boredom could rather would still set in. But how about putting efforts in reproducing/recreating that bond instead?
Weddings are good fun. You get to dress up nicely and eat your heart out at the host's expenses (which by the way is a lot these days given everyone's obsession with wasting money...a separate post on that later)...and then criticise the feast too!
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| Pic: http://www.123rf.com |
Anyway, I was talking about the wedding invites. Almost all of them say the host would like your blessings "as the couple enters the bond of marriage continuing their journey of love and companionship". Now that sounds very sweet and all but how many of such couples you know actually share that companionship? With every invite I get very curious about knowing the story behind "Will you marry me?".
I am not seeing all of them with the same glass but something about most of them saddens me. I am not against marriage per se. But I am pro it only for the right reasons. I accord great significance to reason. I have met very few couples who say they want to be with each other and marriage is only incidental. Half the pairs I know decided to marry because they were 'ready-to-be-married' years old and there was pressure from both families. Or because of the pressure they chose the person since it's known risks are better than stepping in unknown waters! After a relationship of 6-7 years, given a choice, they'd rather not be together but being together is better than going for an arranged marriage. In certain cases, one of them doesn't want to hurt the other and gets into the marriage for the sake of so many years spent together. His/her heart may belong elsewhere but this 'seems the right thing to do'. Marriage for the sake of it, in short. What happened to love? When and why did people stop caring about the love and companionship the wedding invites glitteringly talk of?
The marriages happen anyway. There's a honeymoon period. And then what follows is the most predictable part of the story. Boredom. No prizes for guessing the solution the not-at-all-in-love-but-what-can-we-do couple thinks of....and is advised so by everyone around. A baby, of course. I almost burnt my tongue and my eyes almost popped out when, while having coffee, a friend of mine (about 26 years old) said this: "In arranged marriage it's still okay since the couple needs time to understand each other, but in love marriage the couple should definitely have kids within a couple of years since boredom starts setting in."
Reproduce life just because you are bored of each other? Very amusing! That about explains the size of population in our country. The ability to reproduce life is a miracle in its own right. It's unfortunate it is belittled as an excuse to kill boredom. Poor child comes into the world with such a huge burden of entertaining his/her parents. And s/he grows up to see them and their relationship completely out of love, together only for his/her sake.
Does it sound too quixotic to say that people should marry for right reasons: true companionship and love (whatever the word means)? And bring a new life into the world only to let him/her grow in that peace. Sure, boredom could rather would still set in. But how about putting efforts in reproducing/recreating that bond instead?
7 comments:
Cannot agree more..
you know my comments on this...."No Comments"
The irony of your life started showing from the first line.. ;)
The writing, as always, is refreshing!
@gchan: haha I sort of predicted that.
@Ashutosh: thank you. Though, it feels odd when you are nice and sweet!
My philosophy has always been to marry because you cannot live without someone. Don't marry just because you want to live with someone.
Sounds very quixotic but I so agree with that Raaji!
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