Marriage is not sacred

The day our daughter Riya was born was singularly the most emotional day I have been through and I can take the liberty of saying the same for my wife. As this bundle of joy triggered feeling which I have never felt, it started a series of remarks which people felt obligated to tell me. During one of the family events in the next couple of days, my cousin remarked, “Hey, you have a daughter now. You need to start saving for her wedding.” I was completely put off by the comment. As much as this would sound innocuous for people who have accepted this social practice, to me it was horrible. I had to break this. I responded rather nonchalantly, “Why should I? I don’t know if she will marry. If she does will be let me know or invite me. Will she marry a boy or a girl? Will she have kids? Above all I don’t care because it is her life.” Thinking back, I could have answered it in far more acerbic fashion but the situation explains why this deep rooted social evil called wedding has become an issue. That said, it is not uncommon in India, my country of birth for the entire society to feel they have the right to get anyone married. It is definitely not considered intrusion if parents say “get married for me. I am getting old.”. 

Why is this the case? Why is marriage important? Why does it matter to parents and relatives?

Marriage is one of the earliest known civil custom. It predates written history, so no one can truly understand the origin of this civil custom. However, based on the observations of fellow primates, we can definitely infer that evolution has created a need for a social mate in most of us. I always wonder how that search for intimacy and affection result in an institution called marriage. It doesn’t make sense. The answer is, it doesn’t. Here is the history of marriages and the reason the institution has to be dismantled.

Irrespective of the civilisation I read, I find some common themes on the concept of marriage. Marriage has always been executed as a trade and not as a civil partnership. Marriage is probably one of the very few social evils that outdate organised religion. For a change religion jumped on capitalising marriages only long after. Most cultures like ancient Greek considered marriage as a festival of sex. They performed ritual called Hieros gamos, which played out a sexual act through marriage between a God and a Goddess. So, here are the common themes which connect the ancient marriages.

The fundamental to marriage has always been economical. Ancient Hebrew tradition considered a wife as a property of very high value. Chanakya Neeti, written by an Indian Philosopher Chanakya who lived in 400 BC provides justification to sell one’s wife upon need. There are plenty of other examples where wealth gets transferred to either the bride’s family or the groom’s family to seal a relationship. The holy scriptures across religions always refer to the bride as someone who gets donated to the groom. It was always a transfer of deed. Just as a proof, in Hindu culture wedding is referred as “Kanya dhanam”, meaning donating a girl. Commoditisation of girls started very early in most cultures.

From time immemorial, humans have been interested in finding the right partner to continue to blood line. There are enough evidence of ways used by societies to stick to a pattern like winner of a competition, within the same family etc. This also resulted in the a system where the mates are valued based on their blood line.

Another common expectation from marriage is the wife takes care of the household chores and bears children. Even ancient civilisations which claimed to have equal right for women like Egyptian, the responsibilities were limited to the doing household chores. Men always had the right to choose, and in most instances right to have many wives to take care of him. The converse is sort of unheard of in any culture.

Children were traded at a very tender age in order to maintain strategic relationships between families. Children cannot muster a defence against this hideous act committed by the well meaning parents. Over centuries this go indoctrinated and became a social norm. There are enough historical facts where royal weddings were arranges to maintain relationships between different kingdoms. Again it was a case of trading their children for social and material gains.

So, as we understand the marriage was never setup for the bridge or groom. It was for the family and the society. At this point, the stage was perfectly set for religion to take over. There were covenants around marriage now, which get controlled. They decided who can marry whom, when can people marry, what constitutes a marriage and above all why should people marry. When you mix selfish interests of people with organised faith, you create a catastrophe. That is what marriage is as an institution. Let’s look at the evils associated with marriages now.

I consider marriage as an institution a complete legacy. It has not social or moral imperative. It could sound hypocritical from a man who is actually married. However as a person who is in this institution, I feel I am best placed to say it is irrelevant in my relationship. I am sure if I abuse the relationship my wife would not put up with it and the converse is true for me as well. Here are some common myths I want to break.

“It is Sacred” : There is sanctity in marriage. It is completely made up. It is a relationship between two people who like each other. There is no need of a name. If it doesn’t work, people move their respective ways.

“You need a support” : This is definitely not true. The very nature of this statement is intended to make one feel weak and incapable of helping oneself.

“You need a child” : Again procreation is not a requirement. There are enough ways to have a child and above all one need not have a child. It is not mandatory to have a child.

“Because everyone does so” : This is where it starts to go ridiculous. People have to think and not behave like sheep.

“Your faith demands it” : If someone falls for this explanation, I don’t think any amount of rationale will help. These people have already pledged their critical faculties to understand anything.

I definitely see some positive steps taken in this regard. Firstly, governments globally have started recognising relationships without matrimony. Secondly, children born out of wedlock have just as much right to be taken care as the ones born through wedlock.

In conclusion, marriage is part of a belief system which never had any utility in the welfare of a society. People do what they want irrespective of this institution. It only forced the victims to tolerate being abused by the system. I definitely believe in the principle of love, partnership, civil relationship between two consenting adults.