Is Marriage Necessary?

"The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly." — Peter De Vries

"The economics of pastoral communities dictated that the cheapest way to hire labor was to breed it. To make sure the kids worked for their father, it was necessary that the institution of the family should be sanctified by the whole weight of religion and morals.” — Bertrand Russel

Recently, when a blogger read heated comments to his post at Writingcampus that declared marriage a sheer waste of time, he must have been quite annoyed by what would have appeared to him as a puritanical resistance to his line of thinking. I do empathize with him; to him, the concerns are real. The concerns of the others are also real, because they fear collapse of society and civilization with the collapse of marriage.

Family is a dynamic social structure built on marriage, and like a living organism, it evolves in response to the needs of the community with changes in its environment. A pastoral society derives its strength from having numerous offspring and a warring community seeks to increase its sovereignty through forging alliances by marriage. In the present industrialized and globalized world, with the ever-rising cost of living caused by privatized health care and education, the strength is perceived to lie in a small, nuclear family. Add to this melting pot the aspirations of a modern woman who would choose to work as a form of self expression and not merely to ease any financial strangleholds, you have a youth population that is caught between the old world notions and its dogmatic demands and present day reality.

For those of us who think marriage is a struggle, think again. Struggle in a marriage is similar to what you might find in any other relationship. The challenges in most relationships is about striking a balance between establishing one's own identity, respecting those of others and honoring the common good. If you were on a job, should you speak your mind even if it is hurtful to others, and take care of your benefits before thinking of the team? How to react when your best friend acts against you, knowingly or otherwise? As a parent, how far can you go in laying down rules? How far is too far? How to be friendly with your pesky neighbour, and still rap him for his nasty habit of throwing garbage near your gate? It goes without saying one must face the challenges; one cannot run away from them.

Should people get married? Is life better, for individuals and for society at large, when people get married? Marriage protects the weak and the vulnerable — the children, women, the old and the infirm. The commitment embedded in a marriage binds people in a social and cultural network and is the bulwark, however weak, against exploitation. Research affirms married people live longer and enjoy better health.

That said, please be open to the changing norms. Anthroplogists would tell you of the myriad forms of marriage that have existed and served the society since ancient times. Matrimonial relations themselves have existed in several forms through the ages — monogamy and three types of polygamy — polygyny (one man – several women), polyandry (one woman - several men) and polygyandry (several women – several men. Various tribes in India have marriages that might look liberal to a modern man, but the tribes followed the set rules, and defaulters could not go scot-free. That underlines the need for accountability for our actions.

Another point. When somebody says that they want the institution of marriage scrapped, they didn't mean sex should be done away with. All they meant is they would like to enjoy sex without the accompanying encumbrance in the form of commitments or responsibilities. Forget the religious or the moral standpoint, but think of the repercussions. Such a Bohemian attitude can only lead to self-centered, cynical and paranoid society, broken homes and orphaned and destitute children.

On a lighter note, whereas many young people seem to feel disillusioned by marriage, gay people struggle to gain access to it. Would you say it is paradoxical?

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