Is divorce a good thing or a bad thing? This bewildering question, believe it or not, is one I get asked pretty often. Who am I to answer this question? For this is a question that can only be answered by the individual who’s contemplating it. However, keeping in mind the regularity with which I get asked this, I will do my utmost to answer it.
It all comes down to the way we perceive marriage. Originally, marriage was seen as a method by which the integrity of the family could be maintained by compelling parents to look after their children until they were ready to find their feet. Monogamy was not sacrosanct, but looking after the family was. In later times, marriage was considered to be a contract between two people, two tribes, two families. The focus at the time was ensuring purity of lineage. Also, the concept of ‘ownership of property’ meant that inheritance had to proceed along genetic lines. Which is whythe State got in on the act and laws started to be enacted that governed marriage and its dissolution.
Then, with the advent of organized religion, marriage came to be seen as a sacrament that two people entered into in the presence of God and was therefore a lifelong bond that could not be severed at any cost.
‘Love’ entered the marriage picture only a couple of centuries ago, and when this happened, the issue of ‘choice’ started assuming significance. People started choosing to get married to others from gene pools far removed from their own, as a result of which gene pools slowly became more diluted and as geneticists tell us, this actually ended up strengthening the human race.
In our country, marriages are still by and large arranged, though the scenario is slowly changing in urban and metropolitan India. As a result, our perception of divorce has also slowly altered. Women’s economic and sexual empowerment does have something to do with it since women have more choices today than their mothers and grandmothers ever did. However, to hold this responsible for rising divorce rates (as some people tend to do) would be a travesty since empowered women are not immediately rushing to divorce courts. However, they are more likely than the generations before them to consider breaking a toxic marriage than to take things lying down.
Just as marriage has moved from being a contract to a sacrament to a relationship, so too has divorce moved from being a sacrilege to a more viable possibility. Those who view marriage as a sacrament (‘holy matrimony’) are those most likely to have a hard time with the concept of divorce (‘unholy’ act); per contra, those who view it as a relationship between two fallible adults are more sanguine about the idea. At least the element of sin gets taken out and people are able to see divorce as neither holy nor unholy.
Excerpted with the permission of Westland
About The Book
Is an amicable divorce an oxymoron? Caught between tradition and modernity, most Indians have mixed feelings about divorce. Is it the Indian thing to do? Is it fair to the children? Can married people seeking separation for life learn to accept their changed feelings for each other with equanimity? Divorce is never the easy option in the face of marital toxicity. And yet, sometimes it is a necessary one, even if as a last resort. To help couples navigate the minefields in the divorce terrain, To D or Not to D explores the phenomenon in depth and looks at some things men and woman may never have thought about but which they probably should have before taking such a life-changing decision. Dr Vijay Nagaswami, best-selling author of the New Indian Marriage series, takes the reader down roads that need to be travelled, pointing out what one needs to keep in mind before taking a decision because according to him, an amicable divorce is neither a mirage nor an oxymoron.
