Marriage is the legal partnership between two individuals and accepted by society as a social institution. Both men and women study, grow, work and then look for partners in their lives. Some find them in their study place while others at the workplace. Parents find partners for those who are not able to find a partner for themselves.

Marriage is an equal partnership and built on mutual respect and love. It grows with age and ability to adapt to each other. Some marriages last their lifetime while others break over time ,due to lack of compatibility.

In the past ,partners stayed with each other and sacrificed their personal preferences for the larger good of the family and the children. This could have created a lot of hardship to either of the partners but they lived with these challenges. Today divorce is not a dirty word in our society and this is good. Incompatible partners are not forced to stay with one another for life ,even if they did not enjoy being with each other every day.

If we look back at marriage as a social institution ,especially in India, we realise that it has been a binding factor in the family. If we leave out those incompatible ones, who sacrificed their lives for their children’ sake, it has by and large been the glue ,between partners.

I sometimes wonder how some marriages last a life time and not others. If I look at my own marriage, I realise it has to be based on mutual trust and respect. We come from different families, social and academic backgrounds. It is our ability to learn and adapt which makes a marriage click.

Conflicts in marriage are an integral part. We start with a honey moon phase when everything looks hunky dory. Then as the family expands ,children arrive and responsibilities increase, there is bound to be difference of opinions and conflicts between all partners. It is not presence of conflicts which worry me , but the lack of patience and adaptability to deal with these conflicts.

In my view, it is better to separate and lead peaceful and happy lives rather than keep fighting every day and make life miserable for self and others ,in the process. Sometimes the flimsy reasons for divorce make me believe that we need marriage counsellors and family counsellors like in the west ,since joint families and seniors in the family do not play this role of mediation any more.

Family as an institution has already degenerated and in the future, marriage as a social institution ,may not exist in the current form. Over the last decade I have seen that one in three marriages that I have attended ,has failed. This is a scary statistic and I am not proud of it.

We have to prepare ourselves to live in a society where family and marriage are no longer sacrosanct social institutions. We may get new types of partnerships and also new types of families ,which may be different than the past definitions ,we are familiar with.

May be time to redefine “marriage” as a social institution and get ready to live in this new world.

S Ramesh Shankar

28th May 2022

 

I was brought up in the family with the strong belief that loyalty is a virtue. I believed it and saw it being practised around my family members and in the communities I lived.

Then when I started my career in a public sector undertaking, my role model was my father , who served the central government for almost four decades in his career. It was considered inappropriate even to think of leaving a government or public sector job , primarily driven by job security which people believed ,the private sector would never offer.

Even in the community around me, loyalty was considered a virtue. This could be seen in family run businesses and even in kirana shops and vegetable vendors and so on. Loyalty was not only a virtue but was rewarded and recognised by organisations.

I remember we used to get a special award on completing 25 years in the organisation and all of us looked forward to it. After serving the public sector for 14 years I moved to the private sector and then worked for multinationals. The silver jubilee award almost became extinct and was replaced by 5, 10, 15 years awards and so on. Nowadays, employees get rewarded for serving for one full year in a organisation and the anniversaries are celebrated.

This transformation in employee loyalty ,has reflected in the social fabric of the community as well. Marriage as an institution is breaking down and may soon become obsolete. While I do agree that in the past couples coexisted in marriage , more for the sake of their children or others ,even if they did not get along well, divorce is no longer a taboo.

I have the habit of attending any employee marriage in a city I lived, if I was invited to it. Unfortunately in the last decade, one in every three marriages I have attended ,have not survived. I do not want to blame anyone for this. However, it is a fact that loyalty is no longer a virtue, in marriage as an institution too.

I am for couples to voluntarily separate and re marry if they find themselves incompatible for whatever reasons. It was sad to see couples under one roof, even though they could not see each other’s face every day , in the past. But not to believe in marriage as an institution ,may be the evolution of the next century.

If children are not loyal to their parents, it is time to realise that family as an institution is also transforming. It is normal for children even in India today to let their parents stay in old age homes and they are comfortable financing it rather than taking care of them.

While the rest of the world is learning yoga and other Indian traditions of the past, we are learning to redefine our social institutions like marriage and family from the west. It may be time for a churn ,since life is after all a full circle and we will begin all over again.

My belief is that “Loyalty is no longer a virtue in family, society or organisations. It is time to sit back and reflect on the same and move forward to the society of tomorrow.

May be time to redefine the word “Loyalty” itself ?

S Ramesh Shankar

20th April’s 2022