‘I advise you to forget about love, princess.
Pleasure is simpler, and duty more
important. Learn to be satisfied with
them.’
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions
The problem with the institution of marriage is the hype around it. Love and marriage go hand in hand but not all couples marry out of love; it is mostly seen as a decision made by the family members. Yet the conundrum that surrounds the physical intimacy that marriage entails is palpable and adds a dash of excitement. What adds to the delight of two people coming together is the scale at which the event is celebrated in the East, especially in a country like India. Hence, marriage is synonymous with material delights. No matter where one is placed in the hierarchy of the society, it is ensured that the wedding is carried out to the best of their abilities. For most couples, the wedding serves as a platform to have their own red carpet moment. Keeping up with one’s reputation further adds to the stress and craze that already surrounds this emotionally charged event.
The event is also a playground for fragile egos. Families are known to stage the event beyond their means either for the sake of their reputation or to appease the groom’s family or out of sheer love for their children. The essence of the wedding ceremony is the exchange of vows between a man and a woman, but the social hype of the wedding completely overpowers it. And this segment of the ceremony is either rushed through or carried out with disdain since the vows seem to be unrelatable.
Although some of these vows may seem obsolete in the present context, their basic import continues to be relevant in today’s day and age of individualism. In Vedic times, individualism was seen as a selfish trait. An individual was expected to sacrifice her/his ambitions and wants for their family. The sum—family—was always greater than its part—the individual—in the Indian society; if a woman’s freedom was limited, a man’s ambitions, too, were quashed. The individual lives were dictated by duty and not by desire. In fact, during the Vedic period, duty was the cornerstone of civilisation, and desire, on the other hand, was seen as a threat.
When a man got married, his wife was expected to sacrifice her possessions and personal claim over her husband as he was a son first, then a brother, and then her spouse. The dowry that was assembled for a woman since the day she was born went directly to her in-laws and was considered as a family asset. It was then passed on to the daughters of the household at the time of their marriage. A man’s resources were not just limited to his wife as every individual of the household had an equal right to it. Likewise, a man’s wife and kids, too, were the responsibility of the entire family.
Since marriage was clearly not just about material delights and sensual pleasures but also about duties and responsibilities which required one to make sacrifices, many individuals were overwhelmed by it. Some of them adopted the ascetic way of life as a means to escape the life of a householder and, eventually, seek an exit from the cycle of birth and death.
This caused an imbalance in society since it was the duty of an individual to pass on their skills to the next generation and, finally, discharge responsibilities towards his family. Religion offered the ideal of secular ascetic which proposed a way of life where an individual could, in fact, attend to the duties of a householder without getting attached to them and, thereby, attaining moksha.
Hence, marriage was primarily about fulfilling one’s duty to the society and the nucleus of duty was sacrifice. But it was the wife who made carrying out these duties a source of joy for the husband. The role of a wife has been beautifully summed up in this verse of the Mahabharata:
‘The wife is half the man,
the best of friends,
the root of the three ends of life,
and all of that will help him in the other world.
With a wife a man does mighty deeds;
With a wife a man finds courage . . .
A wife is the safest refuge . . .
A man aflame with sorrow in his soul,
or sick with disease,
finds comfort in his wife,
as a man parched with heat
finds relief in water.
Even a man in the grip of rage
will not be harsh to a woman,
remembering that on her depend
the joys of love, happiness, and virtue.
For woman is the everlasting field,
in which the Self is born.’
A sensible and understanding life partner is the greatest gift that life can bestow upon an individual; they have the ability to transform the responsibilities and challenges of life into a beautiful experience. Such is the power of an exceptional life partner. Lust may be the seed of union, but it is love that sustains it. Love usually seems like a vague and mysterious idea because we look for it right in the beginning of a relationship. In the beginning, we fall in love with the very idea of companionship and the person that we imagine them to be, a fictional character framed out of the fairy tales. Since the individual is not the charming version we had imagined, we feel dejected and betrayed in love. We accuse love to be overrated, but everlasting love really is worthy of all the hype that is created around it. It is magical, but this magic takes place during the entire journey of life.
As we resume our daily activities, the promises that we had made during our wedding vows are stashed away and forgotten like our wedding finery. With time, we find ourselves in the middle of an ego battle with our spouse over our respective loses and gains, sacrifices and privileges, and duties and perks that we inherit from this deal called marriage. We feel short-changed in this calculation and the love we started out with is all but forgotten. We now feel stifled and tortured in the company of this stranger we had once cherished and desired. Our hopes of realising our dreams with this person ends in a bitter disappointment. There seems to be nothing sacred about this institution and we wonder how it has withstood the test of time since aeons.
Once part of a couple, a sense of ownership rather than belonging rises for our spouse. Now that we share the same identity, the spouse’s reputation becomes an extension of our ego; we become two inseparable entities—Mrs and Mr. Being one entity is practical and socially acceptable, but when either of the individual wants some space in their life, various problems begin to surface in the marriage. The concept of space is often referred to as a thing of the West, but having some space in a relationship can actually save a marriage from its impending doom which can save the couple a lot of pain in the future.
When we claim ownership over our spouse, the relationship becomes as stifling and oppressing as slavery; we become slaves to each other’s whims and fancies. We seek permission and dictate orders; worse still, we expect our spouses to sacrifice their dreams and happiness for the sake of our petty demands. When we concentrate the burden of our entire being on our spouse and hold them responsible for our dreary existence, we become a liability for them.
Marriage is about sharing both the ups and downs of our life with our partner; we cannot expect them to be our life. Compromising on our sense of individuality in the name of making sacrifices for our spouse is detrimental to the relationship. Marriage is about companionship, not sacrifices; it is about sharing, not forsaking. Sacrifices are not needed for the spouse but for the sake of the household, and the decisions are taken together so that the three aims of life—dharma (piety), artha (wealth), and kama (desire)—are not compromised. Marriage requires a couple to make conscious choices, not decisions imposed by one of them on the other.
A householder’s life is no cakewalk as there are multiple temptations and challenges strewn along the way. Classical Indian wisdom tells us that weakness of the will is part of human nature, and the present is no different from the past. In fact, technology has only made access to these temptations tremendously convenient and the weak-willed cave in easily. Although the factor of convenience is no excuse for lagging in the duties, one needs to make room for human frailties as time progresses.
Despite what the statistics indicate, the institution of marriage is here to stay for a long time. Several marriages do not work out, and there are countless reasons for a couple to separate. But with all due respect to them, the marriages that do work have only one reason for its success—adherence to the duty as a spouse.
When we get married, we make certain vows to our partners. These vows can be modified to suit the couples; in fact, the couples can make their own vows defining their roles and responsibilities. As long as social stability is not compromised, individual ideas must be respected. These vows are a foundation of a sound marriage and go a long way in sustaining the relationship. When a couple dutifully abides by these vows, the relationship is peaceful and harmonious.
When our partner is true to her/his duties, despite the temptations and challenges of life, we develop respect for them. Out of this respect, a forever kind of love blossoms where each becomes an inspiration to the other and fidelity is an expression of this love.
Lust fades with time, but love grows with time; lust is physically driven, but love is spiritually driven; the body is subject to decay, but the spirit is eternal. Love is that eternal bond between a man and wife that transcends space and time.
Desire is only the beginning of a husband-wife relationship, but we tend to view it as the end. The only end is love, and duty is the vehicle to reach this end.