Do Away With Marriage
Does marriage hold any significance in today’s day and age?
Yes, it’s an age-old tradition, the socially acceptable way to live, yada, yada, yada, but is it really necessary? What is it suppose to achieve? Commitment? Does it guarantee ever-lasting love? Does it create permanent connections? Does it? If not, then why do we pressurize men and women to get married? What’s the point, really, when half of all marriages end up in divorce anyway? Does the concept of marriage suit our world anymore?
The college-educated, young urban Indian scoffs at traditional ideas of marriage, and the routine that comes with it: honeymoon, kids, expenses, headaches, loveless-ness, sexless-ness and boredom. Firstly, young men and women today are willing to wait for the right partner to come along, instead of being shoved by their parents to the first woman and man that comes to their doorstep. Then too, they wish to date for a long time, know the person inside-out. They wish to live-in, get a taste of how it might be. It’s akin to a long-drawn experimentation. And if they like the taste of companionship and living together, it might remain just that, and not necessarily culminate into marriage. That doesn’t mean, for one second, that living-in means any less commitment or care.
We are not like men and women from past generations. It is okay for us to have sex before marriage. It is okay for us to date for as long as we wish to. It is perfectly normal for us to move on if it doesn’t work out. Most of all, we are not open to compromising, or settling down already. How can one? What is it that we have achieved so far in our life? There is so much more to do. There are so many countries to travel to. Marriage feels like we are chained, marriage constricts us. Again, living-in or just being in a relationship doesn’t mean you’re free to fly off and come back as you please. It requires just as much commitment and answerability towards one another, but there is ample breathing space.
Marriages are not really what they are made out to be. Affairs, divorces, are quickly replacing the happily-ever-after tag that marriages come with. From our childhood we are fed with the illusions of marriage, the fantastical world of happiness and togetherness. But as we grow up, we realise, through the lives of our own parents and others that nothing great has come out of their union. That their married life has lost its rosy tint, if it ever had one. There is only bitterness and discontent and boredom. Oh, the boredom. When people say things change after marriage, they are right. From the time the relationship translates into marriage, the dynamics change. It just isn’t the same: we start taking each other for granted, the illusions start wearing off, the fantasy that marriage was made out to be, turns to be nothing but hogwash.
One of the reasons marriage doesn’t work is because the more familiar you become with each other, the more you take the other person for granted. The result, we stop caring about our looks and health and eating habits, blissfully gaining weight and dressing in shaggy clothes. We lose inhibitions, a little too much, shamelessly burping and farting in front of our partners.
Why isn’t living together the same as marriage? Isn’t being married only in the head, really? Isn’t it just the most expensive party of your life? So is it just for the society then? To get a licence to copulate? They say you will need a companion when you get old. Really? Is that an argument?
Marriage spells doom for having fun. It takes the fun out of everything and turns it into a bland porridge. Gone are the impromptu road trips, sexual escapades, vacations, movies, dinner dates, dance clubs. Rather, it becomes an endless circle of arguments and bills and compromises.
There was a recent study conducted in America which said that more than 50% people lived alone, by themselves and were perfectly happy. It is fine to live alone. You want someone to cook and clean, get a maid, not a wife. You want to someone to have sex with, get a girlfriend. If she leaves, get another one. You want to share things with someone, you always have friends. What’s the point in being tied to one person your entire life? Does it make sense?
So in this ever-changing world, where our expectations too are changing with every passing second, is it not advisable to do away with marriage, or at least not pay as much footage to it? Is one person enough to satisfy all our needs? Think about it.
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