Every father finds the best match possible for his son/daughter or in a love marriage every individual thinks that I have chosen the best life-partner, then why is the marriage failure rate increasing in India? The figures that exist for our cities and towns show a sharp increase in the last decade or so. What is it that we are missing or over-looking? Are we taking a hasty or a well-thought decision?
I do not want to focus on factors like urbanization and women being financially and emotionally more strong.
The main message here is to get into the “Shubh Mangal” with “Savdhani”
This is to try to answer few of these questions and give a friendly advice to all.
1. The idea is not to blame parents/society for not choosing correct match, but to make society (parents, elders, friends) realize that it is their duty to make their children understand the beautiful yet complicated institution called marriage, let them know beforehand the adjustments and compromises it demands, the patience and love it requires and all the things that should be considered before selecting your mate. As it’s the parents and not the children who have experienced it all already and it’s the most important thing to be shared rather than hide.
2. In Indian tradition, it’s still quite prevalent to force/rush children into marriage. Please re-think what is more important, your child’s lifelong happiness or so-called society’s rules.
3. Do the complete scrutiny before getting into the marriage instead of later trying to make it work. Both the boy and the girl need to be educated about the complications, expectations and the sensitivity this institution needs to be handled with. However the society, parents, elder siblings or the friends who know the complete reality as they have gone through this, fail to paint the complete picture beforehand. I would like to take this opportunity to advice this generation to consider below points before saying “I do”
a. Be it a love or arrange marriage, do not rush into the decision. Do not let any pressure, emotional, social, financial or physical bias your decision. Don’t just depend on people’s word or a single meeting. Your parents have spent entire life teaching you to become independent and have sense of identifying correct things. This is your time to use it and it is your life at stake. So have the courage to stand for yourself.
b. Give the search ample time, schedule various and not just one face-to-face, online or telephonic meetings with the shortlisted candidates. Convince your parents to give you this time as it will make rest of the life wonderful.
c. Try to make the discussions fruitful by finding other person’s thinking on all the things that matter after marriage, like social issues, place of family-members, self-dependence, financial stability and independence, ability and freedom to take decisions and responsibility, importance of better-half and his/her immediate family in the other person’s opinion, how flexible or adamant is the nature, degree of socialism and flamboyance, habits including drinking and smoking, talk about the good-ones too, opinion on sexual needs and desire, opinion on working woman, working mom, sharing household-chores.
d. While making the final choice, accept that no one is perfect or will have all the good qualities one desires. However, knowing above all points and knowing one-self, foresee whether these are the correct conditions and people you would like to spend your remaining life with.
4. After making the conscious decision, believe that everything will be good. To make the later journey smoother, please consider following points:
a. Know that changing other people later is not an option, be prepared to change yourself to make things around you beautiful. Read my earlier posts on "positive thinking" and "know what to change” for the same.
b. Read these effective articles for learning how to be happy even in difficult situations, if they arise even after taking care of all above points:
c. Please accept your new family and respect the new relations. To all the children, accept it or not, it is your responsibility more, to be humble and fulfill expectations as much as you can.
d. A humble request to all the parents to help your children save their marriage: Parents of this generation have grown their daughters equally as their son. They have been taught to be self dependent, given equal education and the power of thinking. The question here is when the same set of parents become in-laws, are they giving equal treatment to their daughter-in-law. Please accept that it is you who have made this wonderful change of treating your daughter equal to your son and gave her all that she deserves, and now when she has grown with all that belief and expects the same in her new home and new role; please do not hesitate to give her the same treatment. I am blessed to have in-laws who are liberal and treat me as their daughter, quoting this example here to highlight if its possible for one its possible for all.
Signing off with a hope that this will help someone select correct match and bring a change in the society’s ever-running trend.
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