Will Marriage Become Extinct in the Future?

“The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds – they mature slowly.” — Peter De Vries

Marriage is the foundation on which a family is built. The marriage is a dynamic structure that evolves in response to the needs of the community which changes with the changes in its environment. A family provides a balanced, well-functioning unit conducive to the raising of children. Marriage protects the weak and the vulnerable — the children, women, the old and the infirm. The commitment embedded in a marriage binds people in a social and cultural network and is the bulwark, however weak, against exploitation.

Anthroplogists would tell you marriages have existed in several forms and have served varying purposes since ancient times. A warring community sought to increase its sovereignty by forging alliances through marriage, which in turn made way for military coalitions and peace treaties. Marriage alliances turned strangers into relatives, creating interdependencies among communities. Marriage was used by upper classes in every society to consolidate wealth. Because of marriage’s vital economic and political functions, few societies throughout history believed that individuals should freely choose their own marriage partners, especially on such fragile grounds as love. Matrimonial relations themselves have existed in several forms through the ages — monogamy and three types of polygamy — polygyny (one man – several women), polyandry (one woman – several men) and polygynandry (several women – several men).

Is marriage necessary? If you were in India (may be, I can say ‘Asia’) and you were a girl, the answer would be obvious. The culture rules that womanhood finds completion when she becomes a mother, and that parenthood finds completion when the parents discharge their duties, which means getting their children married. That’s a hand-down from centuries of wisdom, or more relevantly, hundreds of hours’ of family soaps and serials on the television. Of course, the television serials in India don’t always reflect ground realities correctly. The volatile, melting pot of today’s globalized world holds the aspirations of a modern woman to whom working outside home is no longer a debatable issue, and to whom choosing to work is a form of self expression and not merely a way to ease any financial strangleholds. Today’s global companies’ requirements of night shifts make no distinction between the sexes, and even traditional families have now conceded that girls can return back home well after 3 am. The world around the urban girl no longer pokes a cautioning finger – “You’re a woman!!”