Sometimes I hate growing up. I have a niece and a nephew, a couple of my good friends are married, one of them even has a kid. All this makes me feel am really old. Most of the girls in my age face the same issue, with almost everyone “so how much more days of freedom do you get?”.
Which brings us to the topic MARRIAGE. The age old debate arranged marriage or love marriage. Despite the fact that I belong to a typical tam bram family ive seen both the kinds in my family. One was joyously welcomed the other was grudgingly accepted.
My friend is going through this whole process of getting the right “marriage partner” and I find this whole process more structured and streamlined than applying for a job.
In a typical arranged marriage a lot of issues are considered. By typical I mean all the various equations like caste, culture, language, age, sub caste, family status, educational qualifications etc are considered. So basically you not only marry the other person but an entire family which is good in an overall view of things.
However one thing that I don’t understand is how on earth do you decide if you vibe with the other person in like wat a week? Yea I agree you get a lot more time after the engagement n all but you cant really go back and say ok this is not the right person for me. The family would freak out.
In this case i agree love marriages make sense, im talking about those wherein you have enough time to know the other person not the ones where there is apparently “love at first sight.” But being an all “bio” person I agree with the fact “everything comes down to hormones.” Like my good friend S pointed out in MOST love marriages it’s the physical attraction that causes the first contact and she feels arranged marriages make more sense coz u first bond intellectually.i agree.
So where do I stand?? Honestly I don’t really know. Its all confusing. Both have their pros and cons.Please leave your views.
Just one suggestion : can we match the horoscopes of the mother in law and daughter in law :P. it would probably save us all from the torture that is the serials..
this is one of those subjects that have been argued over like a million times.. no results.. i think its a personal choice im all for arranged marriages they make more sense in our society.
ReplyDeleteand the one abt matching the horoscopes.. rofl.. good idea. lemme know if u try it when your time comes :P
given the nature of predicament that you are in... first come first serve should be fine! :P
ReplyDeleteThere are too many grey areas in both the choices... you've to take your chances... If you're lucky with love... good enough... else the other option ain't bad either...
but why this question at this point of time??
Do I sense love in the air ??
First of all I do not believe that love supercedes everything, that hormone effect of love that u speak of can only make up for disturbances thats there during initial period. And love sometimes rather prevents you from smelling things that stinks right under your nose. One should use more of brain before falling into a relationship (and once in a relationship, get blind folded they say rightly :P ) So i want to shout from the top of Eiffel tower here that your hormone logic has no answers for the realization of even intellectual bond. let alone the desired and required spiritual bond. So if you will please throw your hormone funda out of here pls :P
ReplyDeleteSecondly I should say we indians should feel lucky enough atleast to be able to have both these options open. There is a French friend of mine that every now and then rues about the absence of Arranged Marriage concept in his society. I can tell u, finding the right partner is something that has taken hundreds of millions of people round the world into sleeplessness. So dont worry, you are not alone here.
Thirdly the question of which is better. Traditionally, India reports high rates of success with arranged marriages. By 'SUCCESS', I mean those marriages that did not just end in separation. This success rate according to me has got a lot to do with the role that the Indian married women had assumed for themselves . Taking care of husband's needs had always been a top priority for them. But these days, we all know there are other priorities thats queueing up at the top. And I also feel arranged marriage does little to uproot the evils of dowry thats still predominant in our society. It really hurts me to think of my fren thats saving lakhs for dowry for his sis. With all the good things that our Indian system of arranged marriage provides us, this is also something we have to live up with. Considering these things, given a chance, instinctively i think we all will say we would prefer to go for love marriage rather than arranged.
So coming to the question of which one of the 2 options should be it, I think We should not shut the doors on either of them. Instead of viewing this as Arranged marriage vs love marriage thing, we should look to use either of the 2 processes that destiny could present us with, to find just that 'compatible' partner. I believe we can find a compatible one only if we understand oursleves well. We will understand us better only if we get to spend enough time with ourselves. Thats why there is lot of emphasis placed on mental preparation before we get involved in a relationship. That will enable us to bring to the table, the values we all unknowingly hold dearly to our heart. Next step will be find out if there are shared values with the partner that we seek to cut accross. Thats not simple either as they cannot be simply discussed.
Finally, what if we are reasonably convinced that the boy or the girl is not the one for us, then what is the best way to say no to a family that has built high hopes? Oooooooo well, i dont know how but its got to be done somehow. We just cannot afford to contemplate compromize when we are not yet committed. There is someone thats going to be hurt along the line but let it be sooner rather than later.
At the end of the day, my personal opinion is that we are not relationship experts here. Easiest way is to jump into the ocean and swim accross the turbulent waves. The method i followed with the arranged process was simple, after having discussed sufficiently the things that we normally see and do or look to do every day, I asked myself if there are reasons big enough to say no. When I could find none, just said yes and did not look back after that. Even if my judgement would turn wrong, I would absolutely have no regrets as I just believe in destiny these days. I think I am really lucky to have kept the thing so simple and yet to be feeling reasonably confident now that I have found not just a compatible match but the right one. Dont you worry abt horoscope matches with mother-in-law on paper, rarely do they match in real, so whats the point :)
tch tch... i feel so old right now.. kids that i used to carry around in my hand are talking about marriages and what not.. i feel like a dinosaur...
ReplyDeleteand boy this dude can comment.. i lost my way around half way thro...
i vote for "lau" marriage.. cos i am bored of all the soaps on the tele, and i am in dire need of drama.... :D
Lol yea... ditto
ReplyDeletei didnt even attempt beyond the first few lines... got zapped :)
First of all… I am shocked “hormone funda” makes total sense…. I think my dear brother u don’t know science…
ReplyDeleteIm not talking only abt those hormones tat are associated with attraction, im talking abt the other imp things too.. first of all did u know the ability to trust is gained by a person because of the hormone “oxytocin”….secondly there is a hormone called serotonin which is proved to giv u a calming effect is secreted in the system only after atleast a week or more of human contact.
Men are from mars and women from venus - except when they are in “love”. During this intense period, men and women become more like each other than at any other time. This is proven. So biologically speaking the spelling of love is HORMONE…
Anthropologically speaking, the brain chemistry for romantic love evolved along with pair bonding four or five million years ago, when our species started to forage, stand on two legs, and carry food back to a safe place to eat. Mothers could not do all that and carry an infant in their arms without help from a partner. That led to a major change in reproductive strategy -- infatuation and attachment, the ingredients of romantic love.
Sorry bro am not one who believes in ur so called “spiritual bond”… am all science all the time :)
u know after u started talking about oxytocin and other things you only hear on an episode of bones... i tried to read the original content...
ReplyDeletenope still cant do it
well... while we are still on the subject of hormones... let me bring in some behavioural finance funda...
ReplyDeletewhy do casinos employ strippers?
'coz high levels of testosterone in blood increase your risk taking ability...
no wonder given the risk aversion in the markets nowadays... no one wants to marry an investment banker :D
oh...and btw RT.. science doesn't explain everything...atleast not in finance...
Ok, there you go. I would like to believe these things. So you say things like TRUST, CALMING EFFECT, FEEL OF ONENESS, e.t.c. are all caused due to Hormones. I would like to add on to this the effect of Melatonin hormone that when secreted in sufficient amounts, they say will influence our sleep pattern. Alright, I make a statement based on your hypotheses that hormones are indeed responsible for one of our 5 senses which is the ability to FEEL.
ReplyDeleteNow tell me, is LOVE a by product of just one of the 5 senses thats influenced by hormones? Or do you mean to say other 4 senses are deeply influenced by (or rather influences) sense of FEEL and hence hormones? I know I am confusing because I am obviously confused but I want to strongly negate your statement that the spelling of Love is HORMONE. There are simply too many variables that are at play here.
(If there are other senses thats influenced by hormones, you can quote the name of the hormone and I will be happy to do a background study, this is point 1).
Now coming to the spirit and its supposedly loose ties with science. I would like to bring in
the concept of FORCE and MATTER here. Everybody believes (consciously or sub-consciously) that there is a force that manifests and work through our body which is nothing but matter. Science could not negate this. It cannot prove this alright but if we make the right analogy, this could be understood. Air when under intense vortex motion(FORCE) causes Tornado effect. MATTER thus formed can cut thro other solids. There are other examples that can be quoted here.
Hormones to me is just a combination of molecules/chemicals (MATTER) which cannot be the force
thats primarily responsible for our bodily actions. If this Hormone MATTER is the cause of every little activity inside our body and we have studied them all, then we should be producing these hormones in the form of pills in laboratories and should be by now using these pills to induce feeling of love. Don't say there are drugs available in the market that can manufacture love.
I want to state here that the SPIRIT or the SOUL that works and manifest thro our body is the FORCE that causes the secretion of hormones which in turn may influence the way we feel and hence act. All religions tries to explain just this. We are pitting Science against Religion all the time to create a war of sorts. I think there will be lot of intangible benefits if men allow one to complement another. What are these benefits, well i can quote what i read but we will have to go way out of the context of where we actually started if not already; then Ramu and Arvi will have to lose all their hairs if not already :)
BTW Ramu, we are now old enough to carry your MAINA KUNJU sry MAINA PAKSHI sry MINAKSHI on our shoulders ourselves :)
Looking forward to meeting you all.. RT, I definitely want to hear more abt your hormones, keep this going.. Dont forget to involve Ramu and Arvi here, i want to see them with less hairs when i see them next time, hehe :)
oh oh ... am i reading a Science blog? or a simple arguement on "Love vs Arranged marriage"???
ReplyDelete:-)
gooood to read though .... but must agree with Arvind and RN ... Shankar ... plz write to point..else no one wil read completely.......
Ogay not to cut into all the family politics that seems to be going on... but arts shankar has a point. you cannot explain everything with science. Being a science maniac myself, to an extent i agree with ur line of argument. But my personal view all the hormones and what not actually play an important role during the initial phase of relationships not long term. you have to believe in a higher force, call it god, spirit, soul whatever :)
ReplyDelete