Marriage - an Over rated Relationship!

Every other person in this world no matter where they belong to are scared of definitely one thing - Marriage. We have Love vs Arranged marriage. Love marriages also have commitment issues, but its manageable and far better than Arranged marriages since the groom & bride know each other well enough to discuss and resolve issues.

But even otherwise, why is marriage so overrated? Why is a commitment to husband or wife seem life threatening? I mean we go out of our ways to help our friends, and there's absolutely no reservations there. Why cant marriage be kept as simple as that? The reason why there is so much of involvement and hype around it, is why the things go worse than imagined for most of us. I mean, there is a slight misunderstanding, and the whole world stands in front of you giving you free counselling. As if you are a 10 year old child with no knowledge of how to deal with people;or whats good or bad; or how you want your life to be.

Why; between friends don't we resolve our issues? The reason I am not bringing in family to prove my point is because families are not our choice. We do resolve family issues between parents or siblings; but we don't choose our parents or siblings. They including relatives are part of our life , which we cannot change even if we wanted to, so we accept things and do our best to keep the relations.

But friends are families that we choose. We pick strangers as our friends, we get to know them, invest time and emotional energy in them by choice, we fight and get back together by choice. Its what we do because we want them in our lives. We don't have to maintain a double personality in front of them. There is no societal rule or bonding that ties us to them, there's nothing stopping us from breaking apart, from walking away from each others lives. But still we stick to each other in good and bad times.

In similar fashion, we are picking some random stranger as our life partner in arranged marriage. And if we keep an expectation to start the relationship as friends, it suddenly becomes a joke. The rules around what to do and what not, the list is exhaustive. And every other living soul in this world thinks they have a right to give suggestions and provide free counselling to you when it comes to your marriage. The moment you choose a life partner, you are expected to treat him/her like your lifeline.I know of enough people who have cut off from their friends because of their husband/wife. I still dont understand, how can a stranger be the most important person in your life just because he or she is labelled your husband or wife?

This is the main reason why today, everyone is scared of commitment. You aren't given liberty of taking time to understand each other and gradually like a person. And if you dont like him/her, then you cant simply walk away, because then you will be labelled Divorced; a word most dreaded in our society. I know its all the responsibilities, the kids, financial stability etc..that add to the fear. I am not saying there will not be misunderstandings. People who have real good friends will know what friendship involves. But right now I am targeting just the basic emotional part of it -liking for each other. That doesn't come all of a sudden or just because there is a rule or law around it.

Why is such a beautiful relation the most feared one today? Just imagine, a life changing relationship, marriage, which one should accept with lot of happiness and confidence; is the one that we get into with lot of suspicion, doubt and fear.

I really hope the outlook towards institution of marriage changes, and people start involving themselves in it more openly. Couples should be together because they want to; not because they have to. Just like we as friends stay together.

-Sarita
Dated - 20th March 2015

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