Marriage
When Karl Marx spoke about free love in a socialist society, many of the eyebrows were raised. However this is just an outcome of a society where the woman is not economically dependent on his husband and where the society has progressed enough to provide social security to a single independent woman. Moreover when the children are no longer economically dependent on the parents, what is left behind is just an emotional relationship in a marriage. The legal laws will not then be necessary to bind a family together since the society or the state will be responsible for developed enough to provide for the well-being of each member of the family. With the growing independence of the woman in today’s world, the divorce are also growing in a directly proportionate way. Will a day come when a family won’t be necessary any more? What will be its impact on a society? What change will it bring? Is the change a welcomeable change?
To answer these questions let us examine what the benefits of a family are:
1) Economic stability: A Marriage is more of a financial institution than an emotional one where two people share common wealth and properties. If 2 people are committed to each other, is a legal law really necessary to bind them?And if a legal is really necessary, isn’t the committment itself a questionable one?
Now when the economic stability is provided by state will not this use of a family be rendered useful.
2) Emotional support: Emotional support may be provided by people towards one another even when they are not bound by legal laws. However human emotions are transitory and human beings are whimsical. Marriage is a way of ignoring the value of human emotions emphasizing that they can be tamed and altered for economic and social security. Nonetheless, when economic and social security is ensured, emotional support will be a matter of choice and not a legal obligation.
3) Social security: With the increasing social security of woman and children, the role of marriage in it have been diminishing rapidly.
4) National Savings: One of the main reasons of extreme consumerism of the western society and spending nature of western economy is due to the fact that it does not have a strong family system which encourages saving in eastern society and economy. This eventually leads to economic stability in a state having a strong institution of marriage. Nevertheless personal matters like marriage cannot be enforced for increasing national savings.
Moreover legal marriages have also led to many unhappy marriage, huge economic loss due to alimony and emotional immaturity in people due to an unhealthy children.
I would still emphasize the importance of commitment in relationships not by binding laws but by choice!
Filed under: relationships | 1 Comment
Search
-
You are currently browsing the Meetsaswati's Weblog weblog archives.
Hello!!
I am no psychologist or psycho-therapist or Freudian interpreter or whatever…all i write comes with a strict disclaimer that its solely my opinion & in all possibility has no universal application. Here are my 2 bits…i feel that the human mind has the seemingly contradictory need of wanting both ‘chaos’ & ‘order’ at the same time.. Most societal rules (marriage included) have been created to bring order & discipline in the human way of life BUT the human mind craves for the freedom that comes with chaos (& sometimes feels that it would function better if there was NO order at all). Its written nowhere in a book of law that 2 married people need to take care of each other when one falls sick but still they do…likewise, its written nowhere that 2 married people need to love each other & just each other every micro-second of life (laws only bar adultery) and so they don’t even though any married couple will never admit to that…flawed creatures that we are, we love ourselves so much that it comes in the way of loving an individual for every second of life..happy couples understand this, realize that they would have their difference of opinions, fights, outright disappointment & frustration….things like marriage, friendship have much more of the gray area than ‘black n white’..even if you take out the monetary benefits , humans will need marriage (be it a legal document or a simple exchange of garlands in the traditional shaiva-mat), just to create a mental boundary within which they can lead an independent life of bliss. Bliss has no metric, no measurement so my arguments wont stand in a debate contest..but all our lives we strive for it in different forms..like a virus will tell you, adaptation is needed only when the current system is unsustainable..so far, marriage seems to be doing just fine for humans..