The
transformation of our society has given way to a totally new concept of
marriage of the youngsters in the contemporary times. In the early times, in
extreme orthodox families, parents, without even taking the consent of the
boy/girl fixed their marriage. Whether the boy/girl liked his/her partner
was never asked. In a nutshell, parent’s decision was ultimate
and was never questioned.
Gone are the days when marriage or the
so-called ‘fate’ of the children was decided by their parents. Today, the
boy/girl has all the rights to choose the partner of his/hers choice. The
parents have become more supportive and express full confidence in their
children’s choice/decision.
Both, the arranged as well as love marriage
have their own advantages and disadvantages. In arranged marriage, love
happens after the marriage as the partners get to know each other only after
their marriage. Also, the mystery about one’s partner keeps the
relationship interesting and everlasting. Both the partners unfold
themselves slowly after the marriage, and this keeping the relationship going.
But, the major disadvantage of arranged marriage is that one doesn’t really
know much about one’s partner before the marriage. Whether they would be
able to manage well with each other or not after the marriage is left entirely
on destiny.
On the contrary, in love marriage, both the
partners know each other well in advance. In fact, marriage is just a legal
label on their relationship. Here, one is sure of the partner’s likes
and dislikes. Also, in love marriage, one is happier to marry the person of
one’s choice. But, despite the fact that in love marriage, the partners know
each other much better as compared to arranged marriage; yet the data shows
that the success rate of arranged marriage is much higher than love marriage. Does
this means that arranged marriage is better than love marriage?
The low success rate of love marriage is primarily due to the fact that in
love marriage the partners know each other so well in advance that they hardly
find anything new in their life after their marriage. This monotony in their
life and desire for something ‘new’ causes major difference of
opinion over trivial matters among the partners. It leads to frustration and
ultimately breaking up of the relationship.
The other reason is that before marriage the
girl is treated as a ‘queen’ and gets all the possible care and
attention from the guy. After the marriage, somehow, due to additional
responsibilities, the guy is unable to give comparatively, the same amount of
love and attention as before. This makes the girl feel that the guy has lost
interest in her and is no longer the same person she loved. This negative
thinking/mentality leads to major shuffles over minor things and ultimately
tensions in the relationship.
In spite of all this, given a choice, most
of the youngsters would go for love marriage instead of arranged marriage.
This shows that love marriage is preferred by the youngsters over arranged
marriage. But, there are lot of issues one has to deal with while going for
love marriage. What can one do at an individual level to reduce the failure of
love marriage? Should one leave it as it is?
One has to have a balanced approach to
tackle with these issues. On the guy’s side, he should make sure that even
after the marriage, the girl still gets the same amount of attention and most
importantly same amount of love as before. The girl has to be treated like a
queen and it should continue even after the marriage. On the girl’s side,
she should understand that after the marriage things don’t remain the same
as before. She has to be more understanding and support her partner rather
than fighting over trivial matters.
-Neeraj Verma
The author
can be contact at neerajverma@hindustanlink.com
