Marriages are made in heaven

 The following are a few recent higher court’s judgement in India as shared by a friend who is well conversant with legal matters.

1- Wife or husband can have sex outside of marriage and it can’t be a ground for divorce
(having sex with anyone is part of personal freeedom - married or not )
2- Even when the wife claims or circumstances prove that the child is not the biological child of the legally wedded husband but someone else,
No one can demand a DNA paternity test as it violates the privacy of wife and child. It can’t be a ground for divorce .

3- If the child has a different biological father other than the husband , still the husband is responsible for child maintenance (as child was born while he was legally husband).

All these happenings at a time of a rising trend in separations and divorces in India. The Supreme Court of India not long observed that most divorces arise from love marriages. A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sanjay Karol, while hearing a transfer petition arising out of a matrimonial dispute, made the observation. 

The Justices may not be doing justice by coming to a conclusion based without any scientific evidence but they may have a point. So also I would like to throw light on the difference between the arranged or the so called love marriages sans scientific evidence.

Marriages may be made in heaven but breakups and divorces happen on earth. Amongst my numerous friends and relatives I have observed that the success rate of arranged marriages is way more than that of so called love marriages. (The term love marriage is a misnomer here as in many cases in India it's more like a self negotiated marriage of convenience rather than any kind of real love associated with it. Usual disclaimers apply). I have seen many such love marriages collapsing like a pack of cards, while amples of arranged marriages have spectacularly succeded. 

The simple psychological equation, (Expectations - Fulfillment = Frustration) still holds good in all spheres of life, including marriages. Every human being has a good and bad side. In love marriages, before marriage the boy and girl know the good side of each other, shadowing their bad and ugly sides during their courtship period. During the dating phase the couples know the best part of each other, striving hard to successfully hide their shortcomings, rarely aware of each other's negative side. They raise the bar of expectations to the highest level. The first 100 days of marriage is the honeymoon phase of life after which familiarity slowly breeds contempt. As the initial physical attraction wanes the true color comes out like dusky evening sky after the dissapearance of cloud cover. This leads to disaster in many love marriages. As William Shakespeare famously said in his "A Midsummer Night's Dream - the course of true love never did run smooth." 

However the opposite happens in case of arrange marriages when the good, bad and ugly side of each person is known after marriage. Expectation is low as two virtual unknowns tie their knot and the couple tend to adjust with each other as trust and care slowly builds up over time akin to a slow baked Pizza crust brings out its best taste and texture. Slow and steady wins the race. Like two sides of a coin they couple may not see each other but stick together.

In a country where the reason for divorce could be as silly as my husband eats a lot of spicy foods, baked bean and farts all night and breakups happen like drop of a hat, nothing fascinates my American friends more than our concept of arranged marriages which they find quite intriguing and amusing. They dont use the term love marriage like we do. I too find the term love mariage an oxymoron. I reiterate should be rather called self arranged/self negotiated/post courtship marriage or whatever, but quite frankly the term love marriage is a misnomer. 

Upon queried, I have tried my best to explain by drawing a contrast between arranged and love marriages. I tell them how my own marriage was arranged. Long story short, my wife and I met for the first and only time before marriage for 30 long minutes and our marriage approaching 30 years, still going strong. Our dating was limited to our conversation on phone, a telephonic courtship over 10,000 miles between US and India at an exorbitant rate in 1990s at $1 a minute, the contemporary call rate to India. AT&T and MCI (now defunct) should have given me some bonus as those 5 months between meeting my would be wife and our marriage I contributed handsomely to their coffers. 

Not sure how much my American friends were thrilled at my telephonic dating story, they found it quite amusing. One of them joked - "How can you marry someone you barely know ? Don't ya take a car for test drive before buying it ? You dont wanna buy a car just looking at it and talking to the dealer over phone". In another instance when I queried a friend why he is not yet married his response was "You don't have to keep a cow at home to get milk". Logic well made and point well taken.

However one cannot compare a car with "Yaar" (companion). Though most marriages in India are arranged and in spite of the recent spike the divorces, the rate in still low compared to the western world. This gives credence to the fact that most arrange marriages succeed. A la America, arranged marriages are built from scratch, time tested and have succeeded on the long run, a la "LAMBA RACE KA GHODA (Horse good for long run) - robust and resilience.