Marriages are Made in Heaven - A Satire

"Why marry and make one woman/man unhappy, when you can stay single and make so many happy?" - A Friend

How do some people meet 'someone' and know that they are the one they want to spend the rest of their life with? What are they thinking? I never understood the concept behind marriage. It has always left me baffled.

Like many of us, I am going through the phase of dilemma - 'to marry or not to marry'. In India, this is not really an option. Marriages are obligatory here. A radical thought that came to my mind is - are marriages the reason why India is really a country with poor people? Wait..put those guns down and let me explain further. People here don't really wait to find the right partner. There are a few points on the checklist - which once ticked by the parents will pronounce two people as man and wife. I have seen poor people spend their lifetime of savings just to get their daughters married and then they end up paying for an eternity. This really is one of the reasons why so many people have committed suicide in India. Girls, boys, and their parents. Marriage is not love. It is probably a way of assuring one's economic status and security. It is widely accepted.

Love on the other side is the opposite. It is wild. It embodies freedom. There is no bondage but there is desire and willingness to be with each-other and sacrifice for the same. It sets you free when you want to fly and knows secretly that you will come back in time. It does not look at bank balance, social status, or some impairment in the person. Thus, it is blind. For it wants to love for the sake of love and not for oneself.

We are certainly progressing (following the western culture or maybe regressing) as a country and many people are now willing to break the stereo-type and marry for the sake of companionship. People are looking at compatibility, understanding, education and willingness from both (the girl and the boy) instead of only looking at race, caste, community, bank balances, etc.  The progress rate probably is 0.1 percent. Nevertheless, it is a change.

Many of these marriages end up working and many don't. You can't blame anyone for the marriages that don't work. I think the problem here lies with the fact that marriage comes with a bulldozer's pressure of making it last a lifetime. Excuse me! Please tell me - what lasts a lifetime? One thing? Is there anything? Please do not give me answers like Sun, Moon, and Air. Even if they last forever, you don't, to see whether they last or not. People generally here are hitched by their parents assuming they understand the best for their child. And children agree. They are given a period of about an year (higher side) to make a choice. You meet your alliance thrice, see if you're comfortable and say yes or no. If you say No - then something is definitely wrong with that girl or guy. Does he/she have an affair? has he/she lost his virginity to someone? Is he/she impotent?

Everyone RELAX! A "No" only means that I do not agree or that I don't think it makes sense to me. Why make such a big deal out of this? Anyway! So, most of us don't find a reason to say "No" and thus end up saying "Yes". In this getting-to-know-each-other phase the following things are assessed.

Boy: Can you cook and clean? (like my mom)

Girl: Do you make enough money? (to buy me diamonds and a couple of world trips)

Boy: Will I look good with you when I walk with you in Public? (can I show her off)

Girl: Will he ask for dowry? (he is highly educated)

Boy: Will I enjoy making love to you? (it might not matter)

Girl: Does he have any bad habits? (I hope he does or else I ll have to pretend to be a teetotaler)

One says "yes" or "no depending on whatever the marriage algorithm in their parents head tells them. However, we are all scared wondering whether we will be able to live with this person for a lifetime. What if you lose interest or you feel that you can never love him/her? Our society has answers! Bring in a child. The child will bond you'll again and you'll will pull through a couple of years more. If disinterest invades again - bring another child in the picture. Having a single child is bad for the child's well-being. Now again the children will bond you for the next few years. What happens then? You menopause and the same goes for your husband. There is no way and no point in getting out the marriage now. Marriage is a prison or what?

After successfully having pushed the question of whether you loved the person you married or not for years - you find a way to stay in it. You then successfully progress to your 30th wedding anniversary. Cheers to that! Now you have your children's spouses to look out for and soon the wish for a grandchild will sprout. Soon enough it will be your time to die and you still don't know whether we love/loved the person we spent our life with. They say - we learn to love someone after we marry. Really? Is it that or you are now merely used to being with that person? And are you saying this is what falling in love is? I think this is called falling in a rut.

To marry or not to marry - that is the question. Or should you choose love and be called a philander? Marriage and love are rarely the same. Most of the time they are trade-offs. Jokes apart, from the purview of Economics it is more beneficial for an individual to marry (dowry) or even to divorce (alimony).