Bound by ‘duty’

Indian marriages become shams, hollow arrangements with little love or respect between the man and woman.

Let us continue the topic of marriage this fortnight too, with an anecdote I would like to share. A young man I know swore that he would only marry the girl his parents chose. He claimed that this was his way of repaying his father for everything he had done for his family and children. An arranged marriage within the same community was fixed with a girl about nine years younger. Within a year of marriage, the young man was bored, and had started an affair with a colleague. In his head, he has done his 'duty', and now feels it is his right to have fun outside the marriage. And since he gives his wife financial security, lavish gifts and affection, he does not imagine that he also needs to give her his loyalty.

Indian marriages, we love to say, are not between two individuals but between two families.  Sadly, this usually means that the marriages become shams, hollow arrangements with little love, either emotional or physical, and little respect between the two main individuals — the man and woman. But the practice thrives on — elderly parents ask their sons to bring wives home, so that they can be “looked after”. Marriage is not seen as something that can bring two people happiness, but as something to increase the social standing or cement the social stature of families.

When families insist that children marry to fulfil their social duty – duty towards family, community and caste – the biggest victims are the two main participants. In the example I started with, for instance, the father is delighted with his obedient son, the son is smug about fulfilling his filial duty. The victim is the woman, sadly unaware that her husband has already moved on.This attitude towards marriage as a socially or politically correct move is something society is very comfortable with, mostly because a patriarchal society allows men the freedom to break the shackles of such marriages quite easily and without social disapproval. On the other hand, can you imagine what will happen if a woman seeks happiness outside a marriage of convenience? We now live in times when young men and women can meet easily, find out about each other, and make intelligent choices about who they want to marry.

People are also marrying at older ages, when they are mature enough to find the right partner, or make their own mistakes. Isn't it high time parents and families moved on beyond the marriage broker role and found something else to do in their sunset years?

(Mail the author at vaishna.r@thehindu.co.in)