The Three 'M's of Madness: Macro-evolution, Marriage & Mayhem
If necessity was the mother of invention, and mankind had to invent marriage, this invention would not need a mother because it wouldn't need to be invented - at least not the way it is now. It is the strangest thing, yet, that humanity has prided itself in, parading it around confidently, minus the clear cracks of course.
In macro-evolution, there is a well-recognised concept of animals changing their bodies over centuries and millennia to adapt to the challenges they face in their environment. Over many years, beaks get longer, scales become different, hair grows or falls, and sometimes even new parts grow - just so that they can adapt to harsh environments.
Mankind is an animal and has his fair share too. This is found in a switch hidden in all the mushy entanglements that is the brain. It developed as a result of being immersed in the culture of idealisation and idolisation of marriage. It remains switched off until the very first day of real married life post the honeymoon.
Once on, it starts an onslaught of all those dreams and hopes that we've been taught to wait for, that this moment is supposed to live upto. While we're all due our wishes and fantasies where we may find them, it also true that all those years in hibernation can make them quite irrelevant, unrealistic, and impractical.
But, hey!, we've lived for this moment and we can't give up on the dream, however impractical. Plus, there are hundreds of family and friends who have been waiting to adore the dreamy couple walking down the aisle. Who needs a reality check when you can just tell your head you're not walking on air?
You can't afford to disappoint yourself with all that buildup, as much as it is everyone's dream to dash down society's aspirations for the wedding and marriage. Your brain takes control of your body and sacrifices all reason, logic, and sense so that you don't disappoint yourself. Enter the mayhem.
You are facing your best hopes that were locked in a time capsule behind that switch, and only one's a party with the onslaught it brings. But didn't it take two to tango? What's the other one supposed to do? Dangle along because the loudest, or the strongest, one wins?
The small things become the big things, and the big things don't matter anymore. All your brain tells your body is: "This is my moment. Watch me own it. Even if I do it at the cost of the unit that we're supposed to be building. I've earned every moment with all that time in the time capsule."
So the small things remain the big things and the big things (that are the solution) are pushed to the corner. Your brain remains in control of your body and you're still scoring the points you can now finally earn after all that waiting - at any cost.
If you step up and say, "but we're not like other couples", I hate to break it to you that marriage, by design, turns man(kind) into wild by design. It's instinctive and will happen to you despite any abundance of love that you have for each other. Even if you'll had selected different partners, the results wouldn't be any less different if you're seeking a true marriage of hearts and souls.
You'd think this should be an open secret and should be well known if it's that bad. God only knows why our marital counselors, priests, parents, relatives, and other close ones don't tell us this. It should be the first thing they say and the only thing they reminded us of constantly. Not telling us this is, primarily, completely on them, mostly the parents. They've been through the jungle and couldn't tell us the unmissable clear risks?
They also perpetuate the culture of idealising and idolizing the whole idea and prospect of marriage, placing it on that high pedestal. Can we blame them? Could they have not been in a position to think about what happened to them and avoid it for their children? Maybe, but now it's also for the future parents to do that for their own children, so the blame for any (future) ignorance is still on the parents.
We can stop overdoing the grandiose of the institution just because our sad lives give us nothing else to talk about. It sets the expectation of it being an out-of-body experience when it should be a firm, grounded experience - maybe with some deviations here and there.
The magic of a marriage is the two people in the middle, not the hundred around them. They are poor, broken souls who should be given unconditional support in figuring out the mess that marriage is by function anyway. A hush-hush from their best example - their parents - will result in them hushing up any solid effort to work on their own marriage and make it better.
Just because there are a lot of cabs and autos on the streets, it doesn't make the next best sense to launch an app to get one fast (supposedly), as any Uber or Ola user in India will know. The drivers will want their pocketful, with a comparison from a pre-app time. The passengers will want the app's promises without cancellations. The app will need its commissions. Instead of what seems like a perfect marriage of needs and desires, each one of them will take every step forward seeking their price first. Hence, all the cancellations and expected lack of improvement in access to public transport through them.
Just like that, because two people from their independent (and different backgrounds) care the world for each other, getting together and doing marriage, as is, isn't the best of ideas. All of the same factors and problems apply. That does not mean they can't, or won't, be happy. It means the design has to change to something that doesn't trigger the opposite of what it is that will hold a marriage together successfully. We shouldn't hoard those ideas of how it must be or should be, frozen from centuries ago, and then magically expect the piece of the puzzle to fit because it's romantic.
The more walls we construct before we marry, as we idolise and idealise, the thicker the wall we'll have to break down when we get married. The more we know what we want in a marriage, without pre-approved designs and expectations of society, the more you can build one that's actually happy - not just on the surface.
Coming from an Indian setting, there's a view that a wedding must have all the steps that the culture dictates - sangeet, haldi, roce, engagement, mehendi, and whatever else is prescribed - or just do the simple basic ceremony and get done with the event. Similarly, the two getting married should either adopt, adapt and find their formula, or stick to the prescribed idea that marriage in their society comes with (along with forgiving the disappointments and making do with the victories they can score).
Mixing both approaches only mixes things up more than the brain can take, pushing it to take over the body and remain in control with all its problems unaddressed. You don't pit people against each other in the guise of getting them together for a happy eternity. If it puts our brains on alert, enough to make it hold up our fists first, before we can make love on something, we've got a problem! The evolution of the brain hasn't advanced enough for marriage to fit into the brain's acceptance. It's up to you decide whether that's a comment on marriage, or on the brain's evolution.
One of the ways to handle this dichotomy is to smile and wave at the very first sign of conflict. Let it pass. As long as you're welcome in another person's arms and heart unconditionally, despite any storm, you're the luckiest person in the world. Just smile & wave, look back at what happened and try and learn from it, then proceed to live another day you're grateful for. Marriage that depends on martyrs to make sure it shines is not something that should be a bedrock of society.
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