Should all marriages last till death?
All of us approach friendship and marriage with some positive expectation that the relationship will last as long as possible.
Few people there are who enter marriage knowing from the start that the relationship will break someday. Even if at the initial stage couples entertain some misgivings when the negative side of their partners begin to show, they still continue to hope that things will get better.
With the embarrassment and gossip that go with separation and divorce in many societies, many are the couples who would wish to stay on to brave the odds, even when the relationship has turned sour or bitter.
Everything, every situation is two sided. Success is to failure as beauty is to ugliness. It seems unnatural to assume that all marriages would last till death, ignoring the probability that some may not be able to make the journey to the end.
Marriages vows pronounced by couples before the officiating priest in a church or at the marriage consulate leave many questions unanswered. Is it true that all couples will continue to love one another in adversity for better or worse?
Many couples, especially women cannot stand the vicissitudes of time. In my country, the psychiatric hospitals are full of women who have been driven crazy by troublous marriages. They cannot stand flirtatious and alcoholic husbands, husbands who love to beat their wives, husbands who are stingy and cannot put food on the family table. And the women too have their negative sides—nagging, abusive, not keeping the house clean. The problems are many.
Quite recently a married woman poisoned her four children and then took her own life. May I ask? Is that how marriages should be? Is a marriage a kind of self inflicted punishment? Is it bondage?
What is it that brings a man and woman together? What makes them think initially that they “love” each other? This so-called thing called “love” is the most deceptive emotion. It can do and undo. It brings joys and sorrows; it has broken many hearts to pieces.
The person you think you “love” is the same person you are likely to hate. This kind of “love” some people may call infatuation—-a kind of foolishness or madness.
If you “love” because of beauty, glamour, sweet words, prestige, wealth and others, know that you are in for trouble? These things don’t last. The “for better or worse” kind of love is based on tolerance, patience, humility, and shared responsibility.
In this time and age, the master-servant type of marriage need to be reassessed. Is it true that every man once a husband should be seen as the head of the family? Does he always have the last word? Where the man displays leadership skill all well and good. But oftentimes, the woman too can come up in certain situation as the able head of the family.
The old fashioned, obsolete scriptural beliefs that the woman should be sudordinate no longer hold water. In all marriages the spouses must strive together, each supporting the other as and when necessary. While we make the effort to make marriages last, we also need to understand that not all fruits ripen at the same time and therefore some marriages will certainly end on the rocks.
We live in a fast changing world and its people are fast changing their attitudes and concerns. Those who strive to make their marriage last must be encouraged. Those who can’t should feel free to take alternative decisions without guilt or stigmatization.
