Fallacies of life: Love and Marriage

There are many fallacies, but today I will talk of two: Love and Marriage.

Love:
Love is God’s greatest commandment. All religions preach it, or some form of it. Most of us try to follow some religion or the other, or at least a set of rules governed by spirituality. To feel love and belong is one of man’s greatest desires. And yet, Love is something we, at best, only attempt. Let me elucidate:

Barring exception cases, do you think it’s possible to truly “love” someone? I’m not talking about stuff mistaken for love: infatuation, or mild caring, or sexual attachment, or down-the-hierarchy responsibility, or other species love. I’m talking about real, hardcore, unadulterated love – no strings attached. Do you think it’s possible?… for humans…?

As I grew up, it was ingrained in me, through religious doctoring, that the only love that is and can be absolute, is God’s love. And yet, this is love that some of God’s children claim not to feel or experience. This is the love that singles don’t feel when ravaged by pangs continually experienced by the lonely. Or the distressed don’t seem to encounter when searching for an immediate solution. It may be divine love, but the good shepherd does not seem to hold your hand and walk you through a problem that seems to be a life-and-death crises. How many of you have seen the perverted work of madmen, or the result of war, or cruelty to the defenceless, and asked, “if there’s a God, where is He now?”.

I then got myself around the assumption that the next closest form of near-absolute love – the earthly kind – is what should exist between a mother and her child. And I find that even this kind of love is more governed by responsibility and/or societal obligations. Orthodox cultures will not allow a daughter to return to her parental home even if she is facing a dire situation at her spouse’s house. Those familiar with pathology professions will relate of many cytogenetic cases wherein the mother – sometimes, both parents – do not want to hold or even look at their deformed baby. And most of us have seen or encountered preferential treatment given by parents / guardians to certain siblings on the basis of their skin colour, earning capacity, looks, demeanour, etc.

The down-the-hierarchy love – older to younger sibling – is also not totally free from negative encumbrances, as it is tainted mostly by responsibility, especially in cases where parental guidance is immature. And you will generally notice that, in such cases, the down-side love is often stronger than up-side love.

And the same is the case with other species love (human to animal/pet). This too, is governed by responsibility and the idea that, in that equation, the human will be at the receiving end mostly. Why do I say this? Would you keep an animal if only the animal needs you and you don’t need to expect/feel that animal’s love even in the smallest form? Especially if you are not a breeder / collector or aim to get a profit out of the arrangement?

And my fellow humans… Do you feel secure of spousal love in the protective cocoon of your marriages? I would hazard a guess with the divorce rates in most urban settings well beyond the 50% mark. Some of you will convincingly say I really love my partner; to these people I have some questions: would you want to maintain a marital relationship if you know there can be no sexual love? Would you be hunky-dory about your spouse when emotional love has become one-sided? Would you continue to stay married if your spouse abused you, especially by withholding love when you needed it the most? Would you be willing to go to jail, be used, or die for a person just because you love them?

I ask this purely in a literal sense. I know if someone knowingly wants you to endure any of these conditions, they don’t love you; my point is would you be willing to love so completely? Would you be willing to give up someone you love to someone you despise, and live the rest of your life either alone or with someone you don’t care about just because love demanded it?

With marriage in mind, would you be agreeable to fall in love and live the rest of your life with a person who has nothing to offer – no money, no fame/glamour, no looks and no personality? I am sure that no woman would marry such a man in this day and age. And yet, these same women would go to the alter and mouth fake promises before God about lifelong love for their spouse. How could a lifelong vow change because a man loses his job or a woman, her beauty? And before you begin to disagree about the materialism in love, let me ask you – if today, Jesus, a 33 year-old man proposed to you, would you truly accept? Place yourself in that time and be objective. Remember, you haven’t heard of his death, or validated his miracles, etc. To you, Jesus would be a wandering vagrant, maybe a quack/sadhu, with long hair, no money/possessions, no charming personality, no status, no designer wear, etc., babbling that He was the Son of God. If you women would not want to marry such a man, why would you want to go to his church and pretend to abide by his love rules?

And I have not only singled out women, because men are equally despicable in these matters.

Marriage:
When we choose to love someone, we usually get the love that we choose to want. When most of us look for someone to marry, we start to make our choice based on things that have absolutely nothing to do with real love: need for sex, security, looks, power, possessions, etc. Put your hand on your heart and ask yourself in truth about the parameters you set when choosing your own mate. Now is the time to bring out that little checklist you have created in your mind – a checklist you have created for selfish reasons of what you want to get out the marriage. On closer scrutiny, much to your astonishment, you will find there is nothing (or hardly anything) in that list of what you want to contribute to for that someone you are willing to “profess” love for. At least, not in the measure you want for yourself. How can you not expect your marriage to fail then?

Doesn’t the bible have this adage: live by the sword, die by the sword? When you marry for sex, money, security, looks, etc., and these things die out in their due course of time, your love and marriage will too, because it was dependent on those selfish reasons that were holding the alliance together.

How can you fall-in and out of love? How can you love someone so deeply, that you think you can never love anyone else, and still fall out of love or love a totally different person at a later date, or maybe at the same time?

Earlier, I used to smile when I would hear some women say that they expect to be swept of their feet by a knight in shining armour. How selfish is that, and how ironical that it is to be tied to the institution of love and marriage? Expecting to be swept of their feet implies just standing there and doing nothing, and expecting someone to come by and do all the hard work that love and relationships entail. You will have heard of other connotations to this statement: waiting for the right one to come along, expecting diamonds because you guess you are worth it…

A woman asking me for advice told me that she was agreeable to sharing her body with her husband, but not her personal living space and material possessions, and she was adamant about it. With knowledge of similar facts, I could very well argue for the case that marriage is disguised prostitution, a legal form of a bartering system at best. Westerners will be very familiar with agreements such as the pre-nuptial agreement. Some would say that this is for the best, that they are being prudent. Can you share your body, mind and soul with a person you can’t trust with your possessions? Is that love? Marital vows require you to take the good with the bad – for sickness and health, for richer or poorer… Why would you prepare for an exit strategy only when things go bad, especially when you promise otherwise? Doesn’t a pre-nup, pre-suppose a divorce even before the marriage has commenced? Why marry in that case?

Some say their love is pure and long lasting. It will never disintegrate no matter what obstacles come in the way. Can you love after infidelity? Can you love a person who’s killed someone you loved? (Friends are known to hate each other for lifetimes when boy/girl friends are merely “stolen”).

Some people say Love is a feeling. Personally, I think love is a choice: I know my lover has these good qualities and these bad qualities, and yet I want/choose to love him/her; and with this mindset comes the feeling associated with love. I have to choose to love the soul of the person, so that if external parameters change, I will still love the person. This kind of love will not demand commercial fulfilment on Valentine’s day, for you would then love because you want to and you have the capacity to, not because it will be reciprocated in ways that you deem fit, or conform to societal norms.

If you have read up to this point, you will have called me a pessimist. And it is not that I have not seen instances of true love; it’s just that that their statistical reality is negligible and that was what prompted me to write this article. I don’t have any intention to sound philosophical or appear preachy. My only quest is to get you thinking and hope that resulting actions born from such reflection will lead to truer wholesome love relationships.

Many of us smile at people because we are happy and our smile would possibly brighten the day for others. We don’t hope to receive the smile in return, but are ecstatic if that happens. Love in that way too, because you have love to share, with no  hope of return or a benefit motive – this may not make a difference to someone else’s life, but it will surely change yours for the better.

I come back to my original question: is it possible to love without reservation? Remember, the best answers are in your heart – that can never be disguised. And after you have answered that, maybe you can come to the fore and tell everyone why Love is not just another dirty four-letter word.