Marriage

Why is marriage the epitome of growing up ?
Growing up and after you have finished your education the next on the wish list of parents is that their son/daughter to get married and have a bunch of kids for them, thats how our parents grew up and thats how we were brought that.
After that you live happily ever after and rinse and repeat the cycle. It is a huge stigma in society if you reach a certain age and you didn't get married, or worse ! if you are married and feel you are not ready to have kids yet.

The way I see things is that marriage is for certain the partnership that we come in least prepared the deal with, all through life we are discouraged to polish the tools and means that will be most helpful to us during the major part of our life.

So our first experience living away from our comfortable nest is during marriage, that is usually one major obstacle that faces newly weds. They find it hard to comprehend how much tolerance and effort it takes to live with someone else, things are not always supposed to go your way. Thank "god" for our culture for it makes that part easier for men, atleast they don't have to deal with that part since things are supposed to go their way regardless. not just that but the wife should always be competing with the first women in that man's life, his mother.
So that comes with its fair share of problem creating potential.

We send partners on a quest to the unknown, armed with naivety and full of themselves to replicate two different environments rather than coming up with their own. each partner is meant to replicate the environment he grew up in, hence its only natural to except clash of the world from that, the probability of that happening increases exponentially with the proximity of one family over the other. Since the rope is being tugged in one way more so than the other it helps put pressure on that relationship and straining it to the point of fatigue. I find it one of the most beneficial experiences for newly weds to be as removed as possible from their own families it tends to paint the relationship with its own tint.

touching on relationships, most commonly and in the traditional sense, the two parties are expected to be virgins. both literally and in the sense that they never had a relationship that they strived to protect since they consider everything before tying the knot as a dispensable practice. So we have two people that essentially don't know how to deal with a sexual relationship which no matter how much of hypocritical society we have to face that its a totally different playing field than that platonic playground of youth. Ergo, the result is that we have a relationship that has living under one roof and mechanically procreating kids at its center rather than having a loving and intimate relationship at its center the way marriage (IMHO) should be.
Marriage is never considered a true and equal partnership, we were just not brought up that way. whether thats the right way or not is something I'll leave to better equipped people to decide, but am certainly of the belief that when you decide to intertwine your destiny with somebody else's both parties should have equal say on where, how, and when things should progress and no party should have a final say on things. Mutual agreement is the only way to make that destiny move forward rather than self destruct.

Traditional marriage tends to serve one of two purposes in my eyes (honestly am all for it actually) either its the easiest method to side step some of the problems that might show up if the relationship was allowed to bloom under normal circumstance, or that in our day and age those people haven't developed the proper social skills to be able to actually achieve that level of relationship on their own. both cases are guaranteed to cause problems in the future.

On the other hand its so commendable to marry at an early age, for me that serves a great hidden purpose in the case of women. when they are young they still trust the institutes and you have on your hands a lesser chance of rebellion, and as some people say you can mold her as your wish. Do we really need that child like mentality when facing life and its problem, the uncompromising attitude of children that either nag till they get what they want ?

So the final tools to make sure that those marriage golems remain in one piece is that we have to push them as much as possible to have kids, for if the marriage is meant to be broken that might give them a good reason to stay together, for they will be doing it for the kids. What a great loving environment for the kids to grow up in. We can also call upon divine intervention and decree to either not allow divorce or give the man a chance to try his luck a few more times since he might have picked a bad apple. too bad we don't protect the family or the women in either case whether its by dogma or law, for it is always their fault for not being obedient enough.

It shouldn't be that way ! Marriage is an evolutionary step in life, you can't skip steps. It should never be for everyone, but everyone should strive for it. To those who never find it are not to be outcasts of society for they might have been answering to a different calling. We are not just mechanically procreation machines, that shouldn't be a reason to marry someone. its called mating in the animal kingdom so why do we degrade marriage to that state! marriage should be a life building exercise where both parties put everything they have, all their baggage, on the table and honesty look forward to creating a better life.
Not to enforce the familial ego, not to please the elders, not to look acceptable in the eyes of society and its customs and religion BUT to enrich the partners lives and create a better reality for themselves for they only have each other and no one else should meddle in their business and how they carry on with their lives for they are starting a new tree.

Without that in mind, and with all the previously mentioned reasons no wonder that married life is always depicted as a miserable one. It is truly rare to find a couple that attest that they are in bliss, and most commonly it will be the married men giving the advice, half jokingly usually, to the bachelors to never get married and live their life like its supposed to be the eulogy of our life.
So you end up with broken home, adulterous partners who lead double and triple lives to please society, their partners and themselves with their happiness never fusing those three realities together.
May you all live happily ever after and choose wisely !

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