BENGALURU: Are relationships a way of staying real and grounded? When elders in families see the youth in their family getting a bit too independent in their thinking, wanting to do things that are way different than what the family has done thus far or actually go wayward, they often say things like, “It is time to tie this child’s legs.” What they mean is not to literally tie up one’s legs but it is an expression to say that they think it is time this young person was tied up in domesticity.
Get them married, encourage them to have a child or two, and then, the weight of all that responsibility will keep them on the straight and narrow path that these elders approve of. Nobody can be flighty when they have a family to feed and take care of – that’s the idea.
These leg-chains as we call it down south in India, or the ‘old ball and chains’ as they called it in medieval times in England were not a response to love, or even an invitation to love. It was just about not going too far in how one explores, experiments and expresses oneself in life. Does it work? Are we able to make real relationships when pushed into one by family or society? Can the wayward individual really get charmed into steady work and family through marriage? If we look back into histories of family for generations before us, certainly there would be tonnes of stories to back it up.
The successful lawyer with spouse and six kids who might have otherwise become a hippie, or the great agriculturist who consolidated the family’s land holdings after being married off instead of chasing dreams of becoming an international chess master, the person who became this great home maker after having threatened to run away and join the circus – there’s bound to be all those stories, as well as ones of people saddled with properties and progeny to manage while the wayward child who was supposed to reform with the relationship never did reform.
Those stories are by the dozens as well, and hundreds of other stories of people just trudging along together, making and raising families, and repeating the same things that happened to them with the next generations over and over, till few really expect anything different. Love and relationships are not necessarily steadying influences in life. Sometimes they may be so, but most times, they are not. If we expect that getting into a relationship will magically make us responsible, fully-functioning, model adult citizens, we are very likely to be disappointed.
Settling down is a choice. People who want to settle down and be all that an adult householder is supposed to be, will do so. They will find the partners to do it with, or do it by themselves. If we think we need love to do that, we will find love to do that, but we cannot really force it on anybody. Relationships are not chains. Responsibility is not a consequence of being in love.