Marriage version 2.2

Any serious discussion on the failure of marriage demands acute understanding on how the essence of marriage changed over the ages. Evolution not only concern biology transformation but also social transformation as well. Marriage by its very nature is stagnant and never evolved. It has remained relatively unchanged for the last 4,000 years. Social psychology and people’s way of life has changed a lot since then. Therefore, it stands to reason that ongoing social evolutions will eventually overtake its own culture, which is consequently why institutions like marriage may remain behind in future. Certainly, if marriage can't evolve, it will extinct. Those are the law of survival and there exist no other way out. 

The rudimentary driver behind its failure is that marriage was not designed to endure the burdens now being asked of it by younger generations. It is an institution that originated centuries ago to fulfill some functional demands of a nonindustrial society. Marriage was not designed as a way for providing romantic experience, friendship, erotic fulfillment, individual choice and of course, not to sustain gender equality. It was not designed to maintain romantic bond between husband and wife. Given its present structure, it simply has to collapse when expected to do so.

Why marriage-  an outdated institution? answer depends on whom you ask, but many scholars point forward to the women’s liberation movement rampant during mid-90s. Purposefully, under institution of marriage, women were habituated to receive financial support from their male counterpart and in return they endured household burden and child-rearing responsibility. As more women gained higher degrees, thrive career outside home and delayed pregnancy, marriage became less necessary for their socio-economic survival.  

Similarly, other social pressures of modern generation have overburdened marriage with many expectations it can never meet. Today’s individualistic generation has lost the sense of community, yet being social animal, they all seek communal care. Isolated from the favor and fulfillment that was pre-achieved through community, unsatisfied modern couples are left with no choice than searching community in microcosm, their own marriage.

   The purposes of marriage has gone through drastic change, yet we rigidly adhere to the outdated structure.  Contemporary generation   can’t move on with  traditional model of marriage because they  no longer inhabit  in the culture that created it. Present- day couples  have different  choice or expectation  than they did hundreds  years ago,  not only in regard to whom they marry, but also the kind of relationship and family they want to have. 

We can’t ignore a fact that modern population are evolving culturally in response to massive societal transformation, and some of those cultural change seems highly relevant. At this moment, Society needs to give upgraded option for newer generation by providing them with the support they need to have fulfilled relationship.  One way to do so is instead of viewing marriage as default choice, society should give equal moral acceptance to cohabitation and single parenting as well. 

A version of this article appears in print on February 27, 2017 of The Himalayan Times >>>(https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/arranged-marriages/)