Marriage and the art of lifecycle maintenance
(A post inspired by comments on Shuv’s post)
Sayantani is shit scared of getting married. Shit scared of what, I don’t know. She and her to-be hubby seem to be hitting it off like a house on fire. If someone like that is shit scared of marriage, then it has to be a scary thing. And of course, it is easy to comment from the sidelines.
One of the themes that scares the bejezus out of unmarried folks is the “then what?” syndrome. You decide to get married to someone for whatever reasons (money, security, love– maybe in that order?), and then what? Who is to guarantee that that reason will be sustained over time?
And if my cynical blogger friends are to be believed, ones who have had the ‘pleasure,’ then it will surely be a disappointment. And at the same time everyone – from the reasonably young to the definitely old, married or otherwise, urge one to jump the gun. More like jump the fun.
Oh god I lament the day this institution was created! I wish we didn’t feel it was somehow necessary. I wish we didn’t plan our lives around it. I wish it would go away! I wish people were less cynical about it. I wish people stopped pretending they hate it. I wish Sayantani all the best!
Sayantani is shit scared of getting married. Shit scared of what, I don’t know. She and her to-be hubby seem to be hitting it off like a house on fire. If someone like that is shit scared of marriage, then it has to be a scary thing. And of course, it is easy to comment from the sidelines.
One of the themes that scares the bejezus out of unmarried folks is the “then what?” syndrome. You decide to get married to someone for whatever reasons (money, security, love– maybe in that order?), and then what? Who is to guarantee that that reason will be sustained over time?
And if my cynical blogger friends are to be believed, ones who have had the ‘pleasure,’ then it will surely be a disappointment. And at the same time everyone – from the reasonably young to the definitely old, married or otherwise, urge one to jump the gun. More like jump the fun.
Oh god I lament the day this institution was created! I wish we didn’t feel it was somehow necessary. I wish we didn’t plan our lives around it. I wish it would go away! I wish people were less cynical about it. I wish people stopped pretending they hate it. I wish Sayantani all the best!
posted by Scout at 11:38 PM
16 Comments:
:-) do i really need to comment on this one V? ;-)
but seriously..my 2 cents worth..its really not a bad institution (eeks..why is it called that??!) ok its not such a bad relationship in itself..its what we as a society have made out of it that stinks!
btw -- i LOVE the title of this post!
Scout: What Sayantani said was a typically cliched statement. Its a fashionable to say that sometimes.
Its in the nature of our generation to try to be too smart. But there are some like me who have got married without any reason.
I would like to believe that I was in love and then I wanted to get the closest one can get to the girl I loved. And then we have had a kid whom we love the most.
We have fights, bad ugly fights, we have to compromise at certain times, but who doesnt. Dont we compromise almost about everything else. Why just pick marriage on that.
But the best part for me is the fact there is always someone to fall back upon.
I strongly believe marriage is necessary. And there is no point dissecting it.
scout,
i agree with gypsy on the title of the post...i can never think of titles. like i can never think of good headlines!
kaushik,
what i said might be cliched, but it doesn't retract from the fact that i'm scared!
i WANTED to get married, make no mistakes; i think everyone does at some point of time. but i think people who say that they weren't scared at all when their wedding day came close, lied through their teeth. because we bourgeois people don't just get married to each other, we form a bond with an entire family...a family that might be completely differnt from our own. again, cliched...but true!
and for the record, my would-be-hubby's family is very very different from mine, and he has been brought up in a very very different way. anymore questions as to WHY i'm scared?
essays, these comments are turning to be! :D
and that's detract, not retract! arghhhhhhhhhhhhh...i sound like amy in "little women" :(
Sayantani: I can understand what you saying. But then everything about marriage is so cliched. I would think its the most cliched thing of all.
thanks gypsy...
everyone is right as usual.
i was very self-conscious while posting this as this topic has been done to death. but i guess it did counter my writer's block :)
dear scout..anything man-made goes against the nature and the natural flow of the existence.
..marriage is an absolutely man made and probably the most artificial institution ever designed by mankind..
..obviously to achieve various grades of social security...and..to create a device which can efficiently exploit women for ages to come..
...such an institution can only guarantee social security (to some extent)..but never happiness...
...it is against the natural flow of life,freedom and growth..giving rise to all kinds of ugliness(dowry,murder,extra marital affairs,psychotic disorders....)
...and thus the "fear of being trapped" ...i feel that "..and they lived happily ever after"..is the greatest myth ever created by the fairy tales over the ages..
how did my post inspire this post?
Shuv: Your post didnt inspire this post. You did.
shuv, I said *comments* on your post inspired this one, not the post itself. hope that is clear :)
which comments?
but one has always the option of walking away. why blame marriage? why can't one blame oneself? hypocrites.
i have seen my parents. i don't give a damn what goes on between them, but given a chance i would again love to be borne to the same parents.
i think they were and are happy ... it shows isn't it?
of course my mother was not much educated and didn't know the meaning of ‘liberation’.
may be, sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
i am firm believer in marriage and loyalty. of course some might have bad experience depending upon who they got as a partner. but why blame the institution.
marriage is good and marriage is fun i love it. kaushik has rightly said in one of his comments "no point dissecting it". It is a different experience for every individual, generalising anything about it is not right....
Aaah!
The dead horse raises its ugly head (OOOH! I LOOOOVE mixing metaphors). Isn't it funny that there are some topics on which the greatest minds in humankind have all, without exception, made statements - some witty, some downright sour, some glowing, some deeply analytical, some deeply hysterical - and yet, future generations keep coming (no pun intended) up with thier own, highly original, commentaries.
It definitely puts 'marriage' in the pantheon of things ENDLESS and ETERNAL. (Come to think of it, maybe that's the problem? Hey, who said there was a problem? Not me ... Cause my wife is probably going to read this post ...)
Like the Parisian vendor in 'History of the World Part I' said - NOTHING, I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY (sic)
except "Good Luck Scout"
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