Why are Marriages Failing?
Paleolithic men did not need a wife to look after the children. For millions of years men and women lived in communities. No child could pin point to its father or mother i.e., no child had a surname or a birth certificate pointing out to who the father was.
If mankind could progress through ‘dark ages’ then what was the need for a marriage?
Reason – man started to get ‘civilized.’ He settled down. The only way he could settle down was to own some land. Thus came the concept of ‘property’. When he owned property, who do you transfer the property to – on his passing away. He would need an heir with the same genetic make-up, which could be construed by only a female. Thus, to securitize property, the institution called ‘marriage’ was born. It became mandatory for a man to give birth to a son, to keep propagating the lineage.
The woman was a transferrable property, a moveable asset – which had to be untarnished, so that she could propagate the lineage of another line.
Will this institution continue forever? No.
5 reasons why ‘Marriage’ is a dying institution?
- Women are no longer a transferrable property – today women have equal claims to wealth and this ‘property’ is no longer under the hegemony of men. If this is true then the very foundation of marriage is now being built on sand and it won’t take time before it sinks.
- Man is again a ‘nomad.’ We have been nomads for millions of years – wanderers. There was a hiatus in between when civilization gave us roots. Now that we are nomads again, where does the concept of property come in? Today you are in Dubai, tomorrow in Florida and day after in Guduvancheri.
Till a few years back when people asked you – where you are from, you had an answer. Today if someone were to ask you, where you are from – it does not make any sense. The concept of property and its transfer have become null and void.
- Children are a burden. I have seen husbands in Singapore and wives in Neyveli. What is the point in ‘squandering’ your wealth on individuals who you never see grow up, just because you are genetically connected. No wonder youngsters of today are averse to having children. A couple I know in Bangalore would prefer to breed a dog instead.
- The problem is too much, too many – When my father had to join IIT, he needed a full length-pant as going to college in short pants would be demeaning. He had his father’s pants altered so that he could make himself presentable in college.
As I grew up in Durgapur, I could delight myself with the thought of savoring an idli and a sambar vada at Mohan’s café when I went to the movies at Anuradha theatre once a month. I was wedded to my Bajaj scooter for nearly 15 years.
Let us come down to today – I have seen uber rich people in Chennai shop for clothes once a week. As a matter of fact, a popular Tamil film actor claimed on TV that she has been wearing a new saree everyday for the last 30 years. She has gone to the extent of constructing a house just to keep the sarees in.
And the youth of today – swiggy for breakfast, Zomato for lunch and resto bar for dinner. A youngster in Trichy owns thirty bikes.
If that is the case, then what would make us stick to ONE for the rest of our lives?
ONE is boring. MANY is fun – so use and throw.
Welcome to this disposable and consumerist world.
- Let us get Virtual – with Bumble and Tinder at your fingertips, to pick and choose from, who needs a B V Raman’s Horoscope to match-fix the marriages?
When one could find a Sunny in Metaverse and an Angelina as a partner in your second life – where is the need for the girl next door to savor your appetite for the next fifty years?
So, I wish to concluded by stating that ‘marriage’ is dead, long live ‘marriage.’
The only concern that I have at the back of my mind is – what is going to happen to these homeless to be children?
By Shiv
