Marriage and to be or not to be…in it!

The essence of a good marriage is respect for each other’s personality combined with that deep intimacy, physical, mental and spiritual, which makes a serious love between man and woman the most fructifying of all human experiences. Such love, like everything that is great and precious, demands its own morality, and frequently entails a sacrifice of the less to the greater, but such sacrifice must be voluntary, for where it is not, it will destroy the very basis of the love for the sake of which it is made.

-          Bertrand Russell, Marriage & Morals (1929)

Interestingly, the celebrated writer in question as per Wikipedia fell in love with a girl called Alys, married her against his grandmother’s wishes but the marriage fell apart when he realised one fine day while cycling that he no longer loved her. He has also been the perpetrator of a seemingly passionate string of affairs with several women of high standing and fame, during his lifetime.

Not to mar his credibility or understanding of the human tendencies that kill a marriage or the singular deep-seated factors that ensure a happy one, I second him on his insightful discourse on the secret of sustaining wedlock. Having been at the receiving end of several queries with regards to how to be happy and married from friends, colleagues and relations, I have often been in a dilemma as to how to approach this question. In a day and age where marriage is rapidly assuming different meanings for a modern generation which is increasingly questioning conventional bonds and institutes, I am in a fix as to whether to propagate the holy sanctity of it or adopt a cynical stand like a victim who has been inflicted with much pain having undergone the experience of being betrothed myself. 

Let me begin by saying there is no one formula to a happy marriage. Different individuals have different demands and expectations from it. However, even if we were to assume that everyone finally aspires to be loved and love his or her partner in equal proportions, the above observation made by Russell would hold true for both parties. However, thanks to the deeply entrenched mesh of family values, orthodox mindsets, gender bias, narrow mindedness, religious and cultural stigmas and traditional patriarchal dominance, marriages are unnervingly tilted to offer unlimited benefits to the man in our society. This has meant a snatching away of everything a woman may hold dear in her maternal household- right from her name, her freedom, her right to expressing an opinion, her independence, financial status and in extreme cases what she can eat, when she should fast, what she should be doing during her menstrual cycle, how many kids she should have- a woman after marriage is to not have any right to her own mind, body and soul. 

That said, marriages are clearly working out differently in urban societies today. Increasingly, you may find the husband sharing household responsibilities, even nurturing kids while the wife goes to work, encouraging financial independence for his partner, moving in to her maternal home without taking a hit to his ego, planning a family based on the mother-to-be’s wishes and so on. Essentially letting the wife be without getting threatened or insecure about the choices she will end up making. Like #Deepika Padukone in the #VogueEmpower video states: It is her choice indeed. Unfortunately, a majority of women even in this century do not get to exercise exactly that- their choice and you would be appalled to see the same country that so eagerly embraces a western outlook when it comes to their sons, is driven to subjugate daughters so that they are used to being treated as secondary in their marital homes.

As to answering the reverberating question of whether it is indeed possible to be happily married at all, I will let Mr. Russell answer that for you. Read on:

It is possible for a civilised man and woman to be happy in marriage, although if this is to be the case a number of conditions must be fulfilled. There must be a feeling of complete equality on both sides, there must be no interference with mutual freedom, there must be the most complete physical and mental intimacy; and there must be a certain similarity in regard to standard of values. (It is fatal for example, if one values only money while the other values only good work.) Given all these conditions, I believe marriage to be the best and most important relation that can exist between two human beings. If it has not been realised hitherto, that is chiefly because husbands and wives have regarded themselves as each other’s policemen. If marriage is to achieve its possibilities, husbands and wives must learn to understand that whatever the law must say, in their private lives they must be free.

Amen to that.