I wonder when did the natural process of male and female of species getting together to produce next generation turned out to be such a bounding agreement that everybody started getting afraid of it. Of course homo sapien being more "brainy" started quoting about it, but is it really that painful? Well come to think of it, you don't get male swans getting together and complaining about their long time au pair (it is observed that swans make pairs for life time), but get in any average bar or human male gathering place, the most discussed thing is long drawn marriages and problems therein.
Marriage was meant to be a simple agreement to stay together for producing off-springs and assurance of taking care of them for considerable future. With wide spread usage of contraceptives and ever growing population of humans, producing off-springs is not such a priority (in purely evolutionary terms sex is actually an incentive for producing off-springs). Thus marriage became an instrument of describing love or binding for your life - based on your perspective. It was thought to be a sacred bond. Different cultures created a context around this bond to ensure people actually stick around for longer. In medieval times breaking marriage was considered sacrilegious (effects being worse for women than men).
I am sure somewhere in the progress of civilization the entire society found out this binding for life process was artificial. So we went through cycle of self discovery. In trbial times of hunting and gathering, marriage was not binding, then we have had our modernization where we made it binding and now we are back on curve where we don't think it has to be binding any more. In fact more and more people are opting for old ways of "living together" rather than marriage. Clearly people who still have old contracts can not break them free yet, but there is hope for next generation.
In some ways marriage is fun (free housekeeping, somebody to tell you when to take pills, etc.), but is it worth the life time of bondage? I don't know. My grandfather was very brave, he had four wives. I always wondered how he managed. I have sure inherited the bravery part, I got married to the first (well technically seventh but who counts?) girl I came across and promised life time of slavery.
While discussing a loan proposal my friend casually asked me if I was afraid of taking such a risk given the large sum and limited earning potential I have. I told him I am not risk averse, I am married.
1 comment:
I must congratulate you on the courage with which you have said it all on the net where your wife too can read it. (Or did this contingency did not strike you at all?). I think it is more to do with the male mindset. All males hate being told what to do. (No prompting). Most women, on the other hand, consider males as a spolied species and decide to repair the damage the moment they get married. And you can't run away once you have kids. (Well you can, but then you lose all the social standing-you can't have everything).
So all that we do is to poke jokes about it-like what Charlie Chaplin did about Hitler.
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