Marriage as a social institution

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

 

Loyalty may not be a virtue anymore

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

Never judge anyone

Every day we tend to judge people around us in every possible way. It may be positive or negative based on our own perceptions or hearsay. We rarely judge people based on facts. This is the reality of life.

An incident in my life today triggered this thought in me and hence this blog. I had given some clothes to stich to a nearby tailor. As usual, this tailor kept giving me new dates every time I called her. I was fed up and hence decided to reach the tailor’s shop one day, unannounced.

I sat down in front of her and got a few things stitched. As they were curtains, she readily did it and told me that the rest will take some more time. I was curious to know why this inordinate delay. She then narrated to me her story. She lives with her hubby and two college going kids.

Her husband who was working in a factory nearby got a paralytic stroke and she went literally from pillar to post for his treatment. Many hospitals near her home including a national centre of excellence refused to treat her husband and she had to drive him all the way to Mysore from Bangalore ( which is 120 kms away from her home) where some hospital agreed to treat him.

This illness made her hubby jobless and she was the only earning member in the family with a shop, which had to be closed ,as she had to take care of her husband and her kids. Luckily her husband is recovering now and her college going kids are supportive .so, she is limping back to normalcy in a slow and steady way.

I had almost decided that I will never give any clothes to her for stiching, based on my perception of her, before knowing the facts. After listening to her story, I decided that she will be my first choice of a tailor for all my future needs.

In life, we tend to judge people based on perceptions or hearsay. We listen to some stories or have some bad experiences and we decide this should be right or wrong. It may be worthwhile to dig deep into the facts of every experience ,before we make any judgement on people.

This happens in family, society and even in organisations. In the family, parents judge children and vice versa. Similarly in organisations, managers judge employees and vice versa based on perceptions and hearsay rather than facts. While it may be the reality to judge people on perceptions, it may be worthwhile to check back and ask for real life instances to substantiate a perception before we make a judgement.

I remember some manager stating that his employee is argumentative just because he is not able to manage him. When I used to ask for real life examples, the manger did not have many to share. When I checked with his peers ,I found that that the employee was smart and the manger found it difficult to bull doze him to do things which the employee felt was not in the best interest of the organisation.

Life is no different. We tend to judge people on the go. It is time to reflect, sit back and gather facts before we judge. If we are able to put ourselves in the situation of the person whom we are about to judge ,we may be more objective in our judgement.

May be time to look at the mirror before we make the next judgement about others.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th April’s 2022