They say marriage is fun; that you are incomplete without it; that marriage is what separates men from boys. The friends and family pump you up so high that you run the risk of colliding with the satellites up there in the sky. So you get married. They all prove to be wrong. What do you get in return to the longest- two- words’ sentence in English— ‘I do’?
They never tell you about the ‘clearance sales’ every Saturday, the ‘newest eatery in town’, and ‘the cousins’ birthdays’- which become mandatory events to attend with your better half. The sister-in-law’s‘marriage anniversary’ you could miss only at your peril and you really have to be brave to forget theretirement party of your father-in-law - meaning a heavy gift for the old man from your fast dwindling fortune, horded during your bachelor days. They do not warn that every step of marriage will travel through your wallet and you will have to keep your wallet open and mouth shut. Keep balancing the salary statement against requisitions from at least one quarter you dare not question, that is, your wife. You also find out that the wives can everyday devise better ways of boring into a husband’s money than the finance minister can think of robbing it legally. One can almost come to believe that both the FM and the HM at home are hand in glove to deplete the accounts of husbands. What is left over from their schemes has to go towards EMI’s.
Life seems to be mortgaged to the dream you had on the day you got hooked into matrimony.
What should a young man do? Abjure marriage forever? Let his world move on the tenterhooks of live-in arrangements. That does not seem to be very ideal.
So, how to solve the conundrum of marriage? The person best suited is the one who has cracked the code himself. The grand pa who had already disposed off two wives opined thus on asking for the solution. ‘You cannot have your cake and eat it too. When you marry you enter into a contract, a vow and a promise in the name of and for God.
Once you are married you cannot think only of your rights. Marriage entails duties. It may not be a bed of roses but is better than that. It is the harbinger of the human civilization.
Marriage gives rise to families. The families give rise to society. And the collective experiences of the society give rise to traditions, culture and civilization.
When you marry you are thrown into a new world. Different aspirations spring up to be dealt with your bachelor identity. You have to change. You have to run a more planned life. The plan for a new family, new people in the family and then the needs of the new group of members of that bigger family take priority.
Think of marriage and god together. God will see to it that your endeavour does not go unrewarded.
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