Marriage: Commitment or Control…

Most of the time we listen to this- ‘ab to shaddi ho chuki’ concept. The new generation is hesitant to get married and keeps delaying as far as possible. As humans are polygamous, they get attracted to the opposite sex easily. After marriage attraction is treated as unethical and a moral issue. As the attraction is natural, even God’s haven’t been spared to its effects.
King of God’s ‘Indra’ is disguised as sage Gautama and had sex with later’s wife. Ahalya and Menaka were sent to earth to break the meditation of Vishwamitra as an ascetic got attracted to Meneka. Even the gods are not spared from attraction, we are still humans. This-so called attraction has been in existence from the age of Gods. Attractions don’t recognize boundaries.
Are we afraid of cars or bikes?? But we still are afraid of snakes and spiders. Even though about four times more people are killed in road accidents compared to people killed by snakes or spider bites. But our ancestors were afraid of snakes and spiders, so people in the 20th century to are afraid of snakes and spiders. In the same way, as ancestors were afraid of snakes they were more attracted to the opposite sex, as in ancient times the main role of humans were to produce offspring and leave an imprint on this world. Same way women were attracted to muscular men because muscularity was a need in ancient times(To hunt, to gather food- muscularity played an important role). Marriage is just a commitment to sharing lives not being caged or to control each other. Frankly, we need to speak about attractions, instead of hiding them.
Imagine if your partner comes and tells you, he/she is getting attracted to his/her colleague. It’s a human tendency the partner will feel vulnerable and insecure, more of can be jealous too. As a marriage commitment- the partner should honestly voice his feeling. As the person got attracted he/she was sure he/she still loves his partner. Else he would not have shared this with you. Give importance to the fact that he/she hadn’t cheated on you. As he/she could easily have done that. Learn to let it go; set your partner free, his/her love would grow like never before. If you would not let your partner share this with you, you can easily fail your marriage. Be your partner’s best friend, with whom you can share everything and anything.
The biggest learning of marriage is love which does not bind you, but love aims to set you free. If you see marriage as the end of freedom, you see you are doing it wrong. The first thing about marriage is to share; if you couldn’t share with your partner then you are doing something wrong. The people have to change many characters to live the life, as a partner you have to be a best friend to sought some problems.
The biggest problem is having sex outside marriage appears disturbing, but sex shouldn’t be treated as sex as ‘Oh-my-god-It’s sex!!’ Sex is an idea of freedom. People shouldn’t tie marriages with sex. Freedom of marriage is not limited to the freedom of having sex outside marriage, but a lot of things beyond it.
It’s just humans who have made it an ethical and a moral issue and attached disgrace and shame to it. Sex is an extremely important aspect of life. It’s just sex that complicates things or most probably marriage. You won’t make sacrifices for someone whom you are attracted to, as you can do with whom you are in love with. Extramarital affairs in human civilization are going to continue till sex is aligned with the concept of marriage.
 A few years ago, widows were burnt alive(Sati practice)- with time it has abolished. Today widows are remarrying in our society. Now we also have accepted homosexuality. Relationship outside marriage is seen as forbidden, but still, it is not seen as unnatural. Until marriage is seen as control over each other, then extramarital affairs are going to continue. Marriage is just a commitment for love, not a control. So just let it go or learn to let it go.

Manish Narwade.