Chapter 5
Dr. Shanker Adawal
Today in the western countries, one in every three marriages is said to end in divorce. Love, affection and loyalty appear to be inconsistent or out of date with a gadget-geared, money-mad and permissive society. In one of our visit to U.S. two years ago, Mrs. X who drove us from Washington to New York narrated her tale, which is briefly as follows:- A lawyer by profession, Mrs. X, 28, had married another lawyer, after “knowing him well” and had a son from him. Two years of their married life crossed by frequent quarrels, “temperamental clashes,” etc. resulted in divorce proceedings. The possession of the child was given by the court to the father. The mother in Mrs. X revolted and she became miserable. She was seeking astrological advice whether she could marry another Attorney, who was in a similar predicament having just then divorced his first wife.
This case is typical of many American marriages. Mrs. X had met an Indian lady and had been astonished to learn that in India most marriages “were arranged” by parents, that the incidence of divorce was negligible and that the very idea of divorce was still repugnant to the average Indian lady. And she had also been told that astrology played a vital role in the selection of partners; all of which astonished her so much that she began to study astrology and “felt convinced” that Indian society had certain in-built safety valves which made marriages stable; and that despite the free mixing of sexes and the permissive nature of man-woman relations in the west, astrology could be of immense value in the selection of brides and bridegrooms, so that the incidence of divorce could be reduced to some extent.
Thanks to the intellectual slavery of Indians, some of the “progressives” are now clamouring for the introduction of sex-education in schools and colleges in India blindly aping the Westerners and unmindful of the jeopardizing of the moral basis and sanctity of man-woman relations.
Paradoxically, it is now being felt in many western countries that the so-called sex-education instead of being “enlightening” by way of imparting “scientific truths” and “natural biological functions” is completely devoid of moral guidance and has resulted in an improper sensationalistics approach on the part of young students, because sex is viewed from the Freudian point of view as a mere biological function and not from the Jungian point of view, as a vital force capable of being directed through channels.
Today the tragedy of India appears to be that Indian people are to be considered as guinea-pigs for experimenting with theories, once fashionable in the west, and now being increasingly rejected as adversely influencing the stability of marriage and family life. America, being a new nation with no tradition, burned for a time with a desire to originate something – new morganatic marriages of convenience dissoluble at will and other freaks. They seem to be realizing gradually that these experiments have proved a thorough failure disrupting the family and increasing enormously the incidence of children’s crimes. Women in India who want to become “progressive” can learn a lesson from the experiences of their unhappy sisters in the west.
At least in Indian parlance, marriage was and in regarded as a sacrament comprehending the equality of the partner in respect of the four-fold goal of life, viz. Dharma (right conduct), Artha (the economic aspect), Kama (sex-relation) and Moksha (spiritual progress), and is not just a civil contract terminable at the desire of either of the contracting interest to the community. Stable families make for stable communities and stable communities make for a stable nation. Hence the importance given to marriage in the Indian Society. Pseudo-rationalists may wax eloquent on public platforms over inter-racial, inter-communal and inter-religious marriages with an eye on cheap publicity in the Press.
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