Marriage and living together
Marriage and living together
Marriage, the invisible sacred
thread that binds the hearts of man and woman for the well-being of the family
and the society. Marriage contributes immensely to the development of values in
life. It develops the sense of responsibility; it brings peace in volatile
mind. It develops different kind of love in man and woman. This love has no comparison at all. Fidelity,
emotional attachment, mutual dependence,
understanding, adjustment, promise to carry on the relation unhindered, to face
all kind of problems jointly, to
consider faults of each other sympathetically , avoidance of over reaction, to
show mutual respect, avoidance of dominance
on each other are the key factors of making conjugal life happy and fruitful.
It completely depends on the balance of some good habits and sense of values of
husband and wife. Values can be learnt from the culture of family tradition,
from the atmosphere in which they live, from good association, and habits
through regular exercise of good sense and restrained life-style.
In Indian married cople are
called ‘dampatī –combination of wife and husband. In Sanskrit grammar it
is derived as ‘jāyā ca patiḥ ca –dampatī
(dvandasamāsa). jāyā—wife, patiḥ--husband . It is a never breakable combination. If it is
broken, then the very word loses its connotation and significance. To glorify
the uniqueness of this relationship, it is said that the sacred bonding of
husband and wife meant for seven births.
I do quote hereby some beautiful pictures
about ideal form of conjugal love from the writings of two great dramatists of
Sanskrit literature, Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti.
In the Raghuvaṁśa, canto VIII,
Kālidāsa depicted the ideal conjugal relationship of Aja, the great king
of solar dynasty and his beloved wife Indumati. After the death of Indumati,
Aja lamented and expressed his feelings about Indumati—
‘gṛhiṇī saciva sakhī mithaḥ
priyaśiṣyā lalite kalāvidhau
karuṇāvimukhena mṛtyunā haratā
tvāṁ vada kiṁ na me hṛtaṃ. (sloka—67)
Here mentiond Indumati as gṛhiṇī (housewife), counseller and friend.
In Bhavabhūti’s
drama ‘Malatimadhavaṃ’, one of the characters Kamandakī said
about the ideal form of conjugal relationship—
Preyo mitraṃ bandhutā vā samagrā
Sarve kāmāḥ
śevadhir jīvitaṃ vā
strīṇāṃ bhartā
dharmadārācca puṃsāṃ
ityonyaṃ
vatsyayor jῆātaṃ astu.
(6.18)
--The husband to women and the
lawful wife to men are the dearest friends, all relatives put together, all
things that the heart covets a treasure and life itself; let this be mutually
known to my dear children.
In the drama ‘Uttararāmacaritaṃ’ Rāma’s
feeling about conjugal love—
advaitaṃ sukhaduḥkhayor anugataṃ
sarvāsu avasthāsu yad
viśrāmo hṛdayasya yatra jarasā
yasmin ahāryo rasaḥ
kālenāvaraṇātyayāt pariṇate yat
premasāre sthitaṃ
bhadraṃ tasya sumānuṣasya
kathamapyekaṃ hi tat prārthyate. (1.39)
--Happy is that fortunate man
who, somehow, obtains that one thing (viz. pure matchless love) which is the
same in happiness or misery, which adapts itself to all conditions, where the
heart finds its solace, the flavour of which is unaffected by old age, and
which matures, as time removes the veil (of reservedness), into permanent deep
affection.
Conjugal love is peerless,
matchless, no dual sense in it. It remains unchanged in happiness and sorrow. Despite
the body decayed due to infirmity and old age, real conjugal love, attainable
by good-natured man, never changes.
In the verse 1.38 of Uttarāmacaritaṃ, Rāma, having seen sleeping Sītā, said —
‘iyaṃ geha lakṣmīr iyaṃ amṛtavartir
nayanayor
asāvasyāḥ sparśo bapuṣi bahulaś
candanarasaḥ
ayaṃ bāhu kaṇṭhe
śiśira-maultikarasaḥ
kimasyāḥ na preyo yadi paraṃ
asahyastu virahaḥ.
--She is the very Lakshmi (wealth) in my house, and a
pencil of nectar to my eyes; her touch is a thick sandal-paste to my body; this
her arm twined round my neck is as cooling and smooth as a pearl-string; what
about her would not be pleasing (only), but separation from her is exceedingly
unbearable.
This uttering is uncomparable
and the rarest one.
Rāma expressed his emotional
reaction after hearing Sītā’s words—
mlānasya jībakusumsya
vikāśanāni
santarpaṇāni
sakalendriya-mohanāni
etāni te suvacanāni sararuhākṣi
karṇāmṛtāni manasaśca
rasāyānāni. (Uttararāmacaritaṃ--1.36)
--These thy sweet words, O
lotus-eyed one, cause the withered flower of life to bloom, gladden me, lull
all my senses into peace, serve as nectar to the ears and as a sovereign balm
to the heart.
This kind of sincere deep
feeling is really unheard.
Now let’s see what Sītā says—
‘ ahaṃ etasya hṛdayaṃ
jānāmi mamaiṣa.’
--I know his heart and he knows
of me.
This unique feeling originated
from deep trust, love and dependence.
Bhavabhūti believes that
conjugal love gets matured through offsprings. The common receptacle of
affection is offspring. Affection of both husband and wife centred in the child
and this child, in the form of joy, binds the hearts of parents tightly--
ʻअन्तःकरणस्य दम्पत्योः स्नेहसंश्रयात्।
आनन्दग्रन्थिरेकोऽयमपत्यमिति वध्यते।।ʼ
(‘antaḥkaraṇasya
dampatyoḥ snehasaṁśrayāt
Ānandagranthir eko’yaṃ iti vadhyate.’)
Most of the sacred verses of Hindu marriage are taken
from the Vedas. In the Hindu marriage many
unique customs and rituals are followed very strictly. Both external and internal parts of this
marriage are important. New bride and bridegroom are being prepared mentally to
enter into newly built conjugal life. Family and society are also connected to their
marriage. The sacredness of marriage is maintained through different kind of
auspicious rituals. The whole ceremony is attached to the greater welfare of
the society.
The young man and woman will be united in one (dampatī),
don’t feel the nature of this relationship, don’t know how to take this
relation in what way and don’t know their role in their new life. The priest
makes utter the bridegroom the sacred verse (mantra)—
ʻओम् अन्नपाशेन मणिना प्राणसूत्रेण पृश्निना।
वध्नामि सत्यग्रन्थिना मनश्च हृदयञ्च ते।।
ओम् यदेतद् हृदयं तव तदस्तु हृदयं मम।
यदिदं हृदयं मम तदस्तु हृदयं तव।।ʼ
(oṃ annapāśen maṇinā prāṇasūtreṇ pṛśninā
Badhnāmi satyagranthinā manaśca hṛdayaῆca te
oṃ yad idaṃ hṛdayaṃ tava tadastu hṛdayaṃ mama
yad idaṃ hṛdayaṃ mama tadastu hṛdayaṃ tava.’)
‘What’s your heart be mine and
what’s my heart be yours’—this is the fundamental element of Hindu marriage.
The two hearts are binded together with a common thread which is made with
fidelity, love and honesty. This is the
most exalted thought in marriage that our ancient thinkers have invented. This
is real civilisation. This is altogether true. Here lie the charm and welfare
of marriage. Thus our great thinkers have glorified conjugal life by
establishing the truth, the welfare and the beauty in it.
If any one of fidelity, love
and honesty is spoiled, then the sacred bonding of conjugal life gets slackened
and life becomes dull and cheerless. So,
we should think about it with positive mind-set.
The other side of mutual
relationship of young man and woman is living together. It is now growing very popular among young
people.
There are some advantages of
living together. Some think it is a trial run for marriage. Both can share the
financial burdens and other household works. Sex life and romantic feeling will
be more fruitful than marriage and so on.
But there are much more
disadvantages in living together than married life. Living together has no such
excitement as in married life. If the couple are of different religious
background, then it would be very difficult to carry on their relationship
further in cohabitation. Children born out of cohabitation suffer more than the
children of married couple. They feel more insecured than the children of
lawful marriage. If the boyfriend leaves after the birth of children, then the
single mother faces troubles for upbringing them. Unemployed mother suffers
badly for livelihood. Children, born out
of cohabitation, suffer also in case of personality development. As they have no social and family bonding, so
they get litle chance of learning values and ethics of life.
There are higher chances to be
abused on the part of children by their mother’s boyfriends than father.
Living together is started
actually for sexual enjoyment of young man and woman. As far satisfaction persists, the relation
runs smoothly and arise no problems. If there is financial problem then it is
hard to keep relationship intact.
There are other darker sides of
cohabitation. If the biological father breaks the relationship after the birth
of a child and the mother, being helpless involves in new relationship, then
the child’s suffering becomes endless.
Affection of father and mother
immensely contributes to the development of children’s personality. They learn
a lot from their fathers’ and mothers’ behaviour and life-style. In
cohabitation this opportunity is very less. Due to lack of proper guidance they
may tend to be involved in drug addiction, crime and perversed life-style.
This will surely affect the
basic structure of the society.
In conclusion, it would not be
unjust to say that marriage is the better solution than living together for the
well being of one’s personal life, for the family and for the society. Human beings are not beasts. They have
conscience which beasts do not possess. Beasts
are equal to human being in case of sex, hunger and thrust. If we confine
ourselves in these three basic instincts and bid goodby to our human qualities,
then there would be no difference between beasts and us. Restraint of diverted
senses is the key factor of developing human qualities. For this purpose value
education should be introduced in all the streams of education and should keep
a close eye for its implementation.
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