“Society bereft of the firm marriage tie”—this, from some
mysterious source, Dr. Pattabhi has conceived to be one of the “foundations of
Russian Communism”, since missiles let flown from Masulipatnam do not reach
Moscow, Russian Communism is not hurt by Dr. Pattabhi’s envenomed words. It can
be left to take care of itself.
*
* *
In talking of marriage as a firm
tie, the doctor has hit upon a characteristic of that institution that is quite
unimportant for measuring sanctity, notwithstanding the great emphasis on its
value laid by him. In our society, marriage does tie up two persons alright.
Being tied up with no escape is however the least of the results of marriage as
it ought to be.
*
* *
An English friend remarked to me
once that he could not understand at all what passed as ‘marriage’ in India. It
seemed to him that most wives that he had come across here were servants in a
glorious disguise without the trade union right of a weekly holiday. He was
puzzled that there was no wooing and love-making—instead there was
match-making, the initiative belonging generally to parents and other elders.
*
* *
The motives that govern marriage
in the society of which Dr. Pattabhi is a pillar are exceedingly strange and
primitive, and neither education nor modern culture seems to have made any
change in them. A wife is sought sometimes in sheer avarice for the dowry in
cash and kind she is expected to bring. (Nowhere is the dowry motive so strong
as among the parents of I.C.S. men)
Sometimes the lady of the house feels a burning desire to have a
daughter-in-law to rule over—and one is forthwith caught and tied to the
domestic hearth—with all the firmness that gives such delight to Dr. Pattabhi’s
anti-Russian heart. Or maybe, old granny preparing for exit from the world,
wants to have a last life’s wish indulged—she cannot die without fondling and
feasting her eyes on a baby begotten by the grandson—and so a bride is found to
provide the facility for fulfillment of her wish. I have even known a father’s
social vanity for outshining his fellows in prodigality of expense and entertainment,
play its part in pitch-forking his son into marriage.
*
* *
By being merely firmly tied up,
these forms of marriage confer no blessing on society. They bring no happiness
to the parties concerned. In the absence of escape from any condition, the
spirit of reconcilement with it is forced into its maximum. Then a certain
tameness, or helpless surrender comes into life which, because struggle is
eliminated by it, looks like peace, but the quality of the peace produced is
the same as that which prevails when the bull tied to the yoke consents to be
driven round and round without any sign of an attempt to break away.
*
* *
So long as the mating instinct acts as among beasts without
being selective, any sort of marriage will pass muster. What elevates marriage
above the animal mating level is love. Love is an interaction between man and
woman that defies analytical treatment. Love and a desire for companionship go
together. Immature love is given to much billing and cooing, but as the
sentiment gets riper, it acquires stillness. After many emotional storms are
gone through, the acme of chastened love is reached, when the lovers together
get lost in common work and interests of absorbing attraction. The love of the
Webbs and the Curies was of this kind.
*
* *
Loveless marriages are ugly things. They do nobody any good.
Of all the miseries in the world, none is greater than being placed in a
position of apparent affinity and affection towards another when in your heart
you feel the reality of it to be lacking. In such a position, women suffer more
than men.
*
* *
Marriage should be saved from the firm tie mentality of Dr.
Pattabhi which in effect leaves no scope for correction of a blunder once
committed. Infallible wisdom does not belong to the young, and in the ordering
of the most important event of their lives, they have to be free to repair the
mischief of hasty or thoughtless action. Leon Blum wrote a great book on “Marriage”
of which the merit lay in his having given candid public expression to the
secret thoughts of victims of rash marriages ending in failure. He took the
daring view that no woman could be expected to choose her husband wisely until
after she had had some experience of married life, and the inexperienced who
are apt to act precipitately and suffer for it afterwards, should, he urged, be
treated gently, and given every chance of re-establishing themselves in a happy
home by an intelligent and sympathetic social conscience freed from prudery. In
other words he gave a scientific basis for divorce—a legal arrangement for
untying the firm marriage tie and providing for incompatibles a way of escape
from compulsory union. Those who set a high value on marriage should welcome
and not abhor its dissolution when it is vulgarized by lack of love or any form
of mutual incompatibility—(March 16, 1946)
S A K A.
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