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Would You Marry Someone You Don’t Love?

By Nanditha Sankar in Society
25th November, 2013

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By Nanditha Sankar:

Enter 25, for some unfortunate souls, it starts the moment you finish your graduation. Right about everyone from the “concerned” next door auntie to the very same relatives who would’ve only appeared twice or thrice in our lives, will magically enter our lives out of nowhere and pop the question of why the young man/woman of the house should be married off to some respectable family ASAP. Somehow, it falls upon the list of “duties” of parents to find a suitable match for their kids and along come the added perks of social status boost amidst kitty party chit-chat.

Marriage

Moving on to the nuances of marriage, a recent US based survey conducted on 5,000 people pointed out that many singles enter into wedlock negating the element of love from the equation. While 31 % of the men were ready to marry someone who had everything they were looking for but love, the percentage of women who thought the same say was 23%. More than pondering over the number disparity between the sexes, it is the idea of marrying for love or for other reasons that is important here.

Would you marry without love?

Hell no, would be the answer in unison. Everyone of us would be expectant of coming across that one person who truly fits the bill and falling in love with them. But rarely does this happen.

In the case of our country, it becomes incumbent upon the parents to marry their kids off before they enter into their 30s. The moment a youth is handed a job and 1-2 years of having led their life enjoying the pleasures of independent living, they’re shoved into the portals of marriage. The Great Indian Wedding, as it has come to be known for the sheer pomposity it serves to highlight more than the union of two people, kicks off at a very early stage. The prospective brides/grooms are reduced to mere pieces on the board and their chances of finding love become all the more slim. This comes with the added pressure of seeing everyone they’d ever known since kindergarten, school and college, getting hitched (yes, this was another reason slated in the same survey). Like the little boy who asked his parents to rush him into the nearest Hot-Wheels store for fear that he would be left out among his peers, so does the marriage process happen.

In the middle of all this hullabaloo, love takes a second seat. The argument on the importance of love is oft repeated. Surely, it leads to better understanding of the other person rather than embracing a stranger for life. Sure enough, it gives us a glimpse of what life would be with whoever we’re involved with at that point of time. But for those who haven’t been in love and are about to take the plunge, all I can say is that whatever reason it is they decide to go for it, the last thing it should be for is just looks/cash. Those two would take us nowhere in life except another plunge, this time for the worse.

And then again comes the question of why one should hurriedly rush into marriage? Do we really need the help of others to keep us happy? To provide for us? Aren’t we better off with the family we’ve been living together with for years? Nowhere is it laid down that marriage is the be-all and the end-all purpose of life. Yet, a large percent of us choose to take the plunge. For better or for worse is a question that we can answer for ourselves.

Caution: At this point I would caution readers not to take the all-so-happy made-for-each-other pictures of couples posted by face value.

“By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
– Socrates

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  1. Vishnu Mahadev

    Good one,Nanditha.But isn’t it beautiful to love your spouse after your marriage?Life will be far more interesting when you marry someone who you have recently met rather than marrying your good old friend.

    1. Nanditha

      Glad you liked it Vishnu 🙂 Well, this is a purely relative idea. To some, the idea of marrying someone they hardly know may seem frightening while to others it could be deemed interesting. But whichever be the case, one should know how to react if they feel they’ve taken the wrong step rather than embrace it for life.

  2. M Singh

    Better yet, consider the prospect of living life as an unmarried individual. Not only will this result in your avoiding the chance of making another individual miserable, but it will greatly enhance your endeavor to seek peace of mind…and will work wonders for bringing India’s population to more manageable levels. Further, being free from the bonds of marriage and family life will allow for greater productivity in tasks that you might take up to improve the lot of those around you. And the clincher…your married friends will envy you! It’s a win-win situation all around. In other words, think outside the box.

    1. Nanditha

      Some good points there. But, like I said, there will also be those “do-chaar log” who do all the finger pointing at unmarried individuals who’re actually leading a happy life. Somehow, the notion of marriage has been drilled into the brains of people at large, so much , so that it has become more of a basic requirement to live. High time everyone, thought outside the box,like us 🙂

  3. M Singh

    Better yet, consider the prospect of living life as an unmarried individual. Not only will this result in your avoiding the chance of making another individual miserable, but it will greatly enhance your efforts to seek peace of mind, help you to meditate at much deeper levels…and will work wonders for bringing India’s population to more manageable levels. Further, being free from the bonds of marriage and family life will allow for greater productivity in tasks that you might take up to improve the lot of those around you. And, not having little children of your own, you will gurgle with joy every time you spot the little tykes…anywhere and everywhere…and much joy shall abound. And the clincher…your”happily” married friends will envy you! It’s a win-win situation all around. In other words, think outside the box. While love is many a splendored thing, there is much more to life than marrying for love, or trying to love someone you have willy-nilly ended up getting married to, because you respected your parents too much to refuse…or perhaps, because you didn’t show some spine. Now you have a choice!

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Now as an MH Fellow with YKA, she’s expanding her impressive scope of work further by launching a campaign to facilitate the process of ensuring better menstrual health and SRH services for women residing in correctional homes in West Bengal. The campaign will entail an independent study to take stalk of the present conditions of MHM in correctional homes across the state and use its findings to build public support and political will to take the necessary action.

Saurabh has been associated with YKA as a user and has consistently been writing on the issue MHM and its intersectionality with other issues in the society. Now as an MHM Fellow with YKA, he’s launched the Right to Period campaign, which aims to ensure proper execution of MHM guidelines in Delhi’s schools.

The long-term aim of the campaign is to develop an open culture where menstruation is not treated as a taboo. The campaign also seeks to hold the schools accountable for their responsibilities as an important component in the implementation of MHM policies by making adequate sanitation infrastructure and knowledge of MHM available in school premises.

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Harshita is a psychologist and works to support people with mental health issues, particularly adolescents who are survivors of violence. Associated with the Azadi Foundation in UP, Harshita became an MHM Fellow with YKA, with the aim of promoting better menstrual health.

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Read more about her campaign.

MH Fellow Sabna comes with significant experience working with a range of development issues. A co-founder of Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to combat period poverty and break menstrual taboos, Sabna has, in the past, worked on the issue of menstruation in urban slums of Delhi with women and adolescent girls. She and her team also released MenstraBook, with menstrastories and organised Menstra Tlk in the Delhi School of Social Work to create more conversations on menstruation.

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A student from Delhi School of Social work, Vineet is a part of Project Sakhi Saheli, an initiative by the students of Delhi school of Social Work to create awareness on Menstrual Health and combat Period Poverty. Along with MHM Action Fellow Sabna, Vineet launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society.

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A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector, before realising she wanted to work in the development and social justice space. Since then, she has worked with Teach For India and Care India and is from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a one of its kind organisation creating leaders for the development sector through its experiential learning post graduate program.

As a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow, Nitisha has started Let’s Talk Period, a campaign to mobilise young people to switch to sustainable period products. She says, “80 lakh women in Delhi use non-biodegradable sanitary products, generate 3000 tonnes of menstrual waste, that takes 500-800 years to decompose; which in turn contributes to the health issues of all menstruators, increased burden of waste management on the city and harmful living environment for all citizens.

Let’s Talk Period aims to change this by

Find out more about her campaign here.

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A former Assistant Secretary with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in West Bengal for three months, Lakshmi Bhavya has been championing the cause of menstrual hygiene in her district. By associating herself with the Lalana Campaign, a holistic menstrual hygiene awareness campaign which is conducted by the Anahat NGO, Lakshmi has been slowly breaking taboos when it comes to periods and menstrual hygiene.

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Bidisha was selected in Change.org’s flagship program ‘She Creates Change’ having run successful online advocacy
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