Marriages Are Made In Heaven Or Hell ?

By Rashi Kaushik

Recently Bombay high court judge remarked that marriages are not made in heaven but hell while granting anticipatory bail to husband who was accused of cruelty and dowry demands by his wife and constant quarrels between them. The fact is marriages are neither made in heaven nor in hell. They are made in society by the people of society and family, which is called arranged marriage. In India approximately 93% of marriages are arranged yet the percent of happy marriage is no better than 50%, which means that the so-called idea of arranged marriages being ideal is just to please the society. There are many reasons for an unhappy marriage irrespective of love or arranged marriage though the over all rate of happy marriage is more for love marriage than arranged. There are certain basic problems in the thinking of society that needs to alter for the happiness of each individual. Marriage is one of the most scared, pious and grand tradition, dissolution of which is looked upon as great ordeal. Marriage in India is not just between two individuals but between two families and that pressure comes on woman to keep everyone happy even if it costs her own happiness. Women are taught to compromise and tolerate patriarchy to keep the family joint and they never take divorce because of several reasons like existence of children, criticism by society, lack of support from families and friends, no financial independence, burden of damaging family reputation and pressure of remarriage while not much responsibilities come on men. The prime reason for quarrels between husband and wife is that they don’t understand each other much and hardly love each other. They are married on the basis of caste, family and earning of the male person. It doesn’t matter if they are compatible or not and are not given proper time to understand each other before marriage. Women who have no voice are most likely to adjust and compromise on everything from basic freedom to domestic violence to save

their marriage. Even at this condition families won’t suggest divorce because Indians are never taught to prioritise individual happiness as that kind of thought is considered selfish specially when it comes to women and this is the reason India has the least divorce rates but that doesn’t mean people have successful marriages. The definition of successful marriage should be the overall of happiness of each individual along with maintaining good equation with partner and not the duration of marriage. Almost every other woman in society feels they are not compatible with their partner because they were never given a choice to understand the person they were going to spend their life with. There is no doubt that every relationship demands some sacrifices but that sacrifice shouldn’t include your happiness and self-respect. According to reports divorces have doubled over the past two decades with most cases from urban areas and the primary reason is growing education and financial independence of women. Awareness of human rights and concept of feminism has also contributed to this rise because nowadays women are intolerant to patriarchy. The best job society can do to make marriages work is to change their basic requirements towards the idea of marriage. Accept the personal choice of their son/daughter irrespective of caste, prefer mutual understanding over caste, happiness of individual over pressures from families, equality of both over gender bias and complete denial to dowry system. Instead to saving money for dowry, invest that on your daughter’s education and qualification to make her independent.

By Rashi Kaushik