Are love marriages the right answer?

LOVE MARRIAGES – HOW SUCCESSFUL?​

‘Techie smothers his wife and kills himself just one year after his marriage’. This news item was printed on the front page, just because the couple involved were well educated and were from MNCs. But there are many such cases happening everyday. Men kill their lovers, doubting their character, youngsters kill teenage girls, if they do not accept their advances, men attack pretty girls with acid and ruin their lives, if they do not agree to marry them, husbands get their wives killed or carry on the murders themselves, if they suspect that they have some affairs outside the marriage and the list goes on! These are besides the hundreds of murders that take place on the issue of dowry, decades after a law has come into force against accepting or giving dowry!

Did such incidents not happen in the past? That is a relevant question. Of course ‘love’ in the sense of attraction of the two genders against each other is eternal and there are hundreds of love sagas in all languages, in all States of India and in all countries. Most of the love stories end in tragedy. 80% of the Bollywood movies are based on love and after seeing these movies one gets an impression that every boy and every girl that goes to college does nothing but falls in love and spends all the time in the college, going around with the partners without the knowledge of the parents and ‘ENJOYING’ life.

I often wonder how love marriages, which happen after the couple have courted for years together and sometimes even lived together (as in the case of the recent murder), can fail? If courtship is strongly recommended for the couple to understand each other, of what use is such courtship if the couple do not read the warning signals and change their decision? Doesn’t this in itself prove that nobody really projects his or her true self unless driven to live under one roof as a spouse? On the whole, marriage still remains a risk, whether it is an arranged marriage, where the man and woman decide to marry based on certain facts given to them, in just a few minutes or whether the man and woman marry after dating for years together. I know of a couple (foreigners), who lived together for 10-12 years but never married after that. Thus what does that word ‘marriage’ really do to the hearts?

Though all these issues were present even in the past, live-in relationships in the Western style are on the rise only of late. How can a person who cannot tolerate his wife interacting with another male, even after knowing her for four to five years, have a healthy mind? Isn’t something very wrong with the individual? If two persons cannot trust each other totally, they have no business of entering into the contract of marriage, because marriage stands on the main foundation of total trust.

‘Possessiveness’ is given as the reason for such a behaviour from an insecure individual. Such individuals need psychiatric treatment. Which husband is not possessive of his wife or the vice versa? Even if, unfortunately, one of them ditches on the other, there is always an option of walking out of the contract. Why go to such extremes?

All these are the fall-out of the changing values in the society. Families are no more what they used to be. Even parents who want to teach some values to their children are looked at as enemies. If out of their experience, the parents can sense dangers in a relationship and hence warn their wards, they are hated as intruders and villains of love. Hence, many of the youngsters even move out of their secure families and get into such immature relationships. Money is no problem these days. Youngsters start earning hefty salaries right after their college. Though as per law they are adults, they are immature and get blinded by this thing called love. The parents are left helpless, as they are shown the law. Which parent would not want his child to get into a successful marriage? Adding salt to the injury is the way parents are projected in most of the Bollywood movies – cheap, villainous and criminal! Sometimes I wonder whether parents also get influenced by such movies, because there are many cases, where the parents get the lovers of their children murdered!

The great predicament today is the unhealthy mix of two cultures – East and the West! While children non-hesitantly depend upon their parents for all their wants – financial, physical and moral well beyond the age of eighteen, they only do not want their parents to interfere in their matters of love and marriage, as they are adults! That’s very fair, provided these so-called adults can deal with whatever the results are of their affairs. But most of the time, they either depend upon aged parents for post-break-up or post-divorce legal hassles, physical and mental back-up and moral support or due to bloated ego, they commit suicides or even murders, as it happened in the recent case. Once again the parents are left with the burden of bearing the sorrows either way! Is it not better to give a fair chance for the parents to give their opinions out of their experience, though they need not necessarily be followed, if the children feel so?

The very edifice of ‘family’ has undergone a tremendous change. Every individual wants to live like an island in these already broken families. Gone are the days when families meant sharing, concern for each other, respect for elders, love for youngsters, direction and advice for youngsters, physical and mental security for all members and peace. These days children are not safe with their parents, aged parents are not safe with their children and grandchildren, wives are not safe with husbands and vice versa and all of them are not safe with people who work for them! Very sorry state of affairs!

It is high time that along with sex-education in schools, marriage counseling is also given to youngsters in their colleges, because anything that is available easily at home has no value. There is this popular saying in Kannada, ‘Hitthalu gida maddalla’! Maybe the youngsters would prefer to heed to the advice of some third person!

Not many parents today are against love marriages but definitely against such relationships which are built on flimsy foundation and can end in mishaps!

Sudha Narasimhachar