Marriage: A work in progress

It doesn’t have to be a case of trial and error. The constantly-evolving institution of marriage can be approached with more consideration.

The most telling comment on the way modern society views marriage was the sign in favour of same-sex marriage that said, “Hey heterosexuals, we want to be miserable too!”

When I think about marriage I am reminded of that cartoon about the women’s liberation movement of the Sixties: One mother tells another, “I am totally confused; I have a 12-year-old who can’t wait to wear a bra and a 22-year-old who wants to burn hers.”

That seems to be the case with marriage — while there seem to be ever increasing numbers wanting to get in, divorce rates show us that there are as many or even more who want to get out!

 

The thing about marriage is that most people don’t realise how tenuous, recent and evolving a man-made institution it really is. Even the most cursory research into it proves that there are hundreds of different forms of it: from the free marriage known as ‘sine manu’ of ancient Rome, wherein a bride was allowed to remain in her father’s home and keep her family rights of inheritance, to the practice of the Nuer of Sudan, which allowed women to act as a husband in certain circumstances, to the convention in some communities in Central Asia and Africa, where the custom of bride kidnapping is prevalent, to the long history of polyandry and same-sex unions around the world, it is obvious that far from being the God-given, Heaven-bestowed practice on which civilisations are predicated, it is in fact a pretty fragile construct — a work in progress almost.

We do not have to look to ancient societies and little-known tribes to realise that the institution of marriage is constantly evolving: Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson’s marriage, Jackie Kennedy’s second trip to the altar with Onassis, and Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce have all chipped away at the conventional view of it in one way or the other.

Perhaps the biggest contributor to the fuzziness that surrounds marriage, besides religion, is the fact that those who jump into it are mostly young and hormone-propelled and have done little research into it and given it no thought.

Mercifully, things are changing: today there are a sizeable number of baby boomers who having married early and divorced, are once again on the brink of second and third marriages and who have the time and the inclination to approach it with a bit more consideration.

Most of my generation of urban Indian divorcées, for instance, having succeeded in their careers, educated and married off their kids, and of course with the benefit of hindsight (and hours of pumping at the gym and popping the right vitamins), are on the brink of second and third marriages. But now their needs and approaches are different. Companionship and care are the priorities this time round. One eligible middle-aged bachelor admitted that “all he was looking for was a co-conspirator in fun”. “I’ve spent all my life working, giving, nurturing, providing, and now in my fifties, I just want to enjoy the fruits of my hard work with someone who is fun to be with.” he said.

So why not just play the dating game I asked him; surely that’s less binding and more exciting? “Yes, but I also worry about growing old alone,” he admitted, morosely. “When I’m old and sick and my kids have lives of their own, who’ll be there besides my side?”

For him, and all those like him, I recommend a reading of Eat Pray Love’s bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert’s second novel, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. When Gilbert embarked on her second marriage, she approached it with a spirit of enquiry and research befitting to its import. It is to her credit that even after she was empowered with knowledge (or perhaps because of it) Elizabeth embarked upon her second betrothal.

For the rest of her generation of once-bitten-twice-shy baby boomers though, marriage still seems a step fraught with endless challenges. For them there is honorary membership to the legion of ‘Happily Unmarrieds.’

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A monthly column on matters of the heart