In the past week, I have been writing about sex and explained the necessity of being more open about it. Unfortunately in the past week I found an example of how people are too open about sex: when they just keep on cheating on their spouses. There we get to another one of India’s big problems: the arranged marriage.
These days, I see more and more men cheating on their wives and women cheating on their husbands! It is true, there are so many cases just within reach that I wouldn’t need to go and search anywhere to find. Last week, we got to know about another such couple.
Both, the man and the woman, are former employees of our Ashram, now working at another Ashram. This man has been cheating on his wife for a very long time. We have heard of it before, we got to know about their fights at home due to this before but we never openly talked to them about it – because that’s just not what someone usually would like to discuss with the public. Usually.
I emphasize this word because now it is just not possible anymore to hide. They have got into trouble with the Ashram they are working at because the husband obviously had sex with some of the Ashram’s wealthier Indian supporters. As you can imagined, that is frowned upon and they may be about to lose their work there.
Obviously, this sparked a major fight at home, with the wife demanding why he could not keep his private parts where they belonged. On the other hand, she was in favour of leaving their work place, as he had so many opportunities there to get into bed with women other than her!
When she said this, however, he laughed. It was not a threat to him, as he openly told her – and anybody who came to talk with them about this topic! He explained: even if she makes us all go anywhere else, I will find women there, too!
Now here is the big joke of the situation: he is not the only one to cheat! His wife does, too!
They have a whole set of other issues as well, which includes domestic violence, him beating his wife, as well as gambling and losing lots of money. Their individual situation is not what I wanted to write about though – I wanted to point out one thing in this whole sexual disaster: they don’t love each other. They don’t have sex with each other. They are not happy together. They are only together for one reason: they are married. Why are they married? Because their marriage was arranged by their parents.
They have to carry on this marriage, they fight, they beat, they cheat, they talk about moving and changing jobs but not once do they mention separation or divorce. No, to the outside, everything has to seem alright.
In this case, the outside would be anybody who has never met them – because now everyone knows about the situation in their marriage!
Again, I want to repeat: this is not an unusual situation! There are so many of them and I think arranged marriage and in addition the big taboo that sex is in this society is at the root of these problems!
Related posts
The Consequences of domestic Violence and arranged Marriage – 10 Jun 16
Do Westerners divorce too easily or do Indians stick around too long? – 17 Mar 16
Marriage is a Bond of Love – Kids prove that Gender doesn’t matter! – 15 Mar 16
What do Bride and Groom feel at their arranged Wedding? – 2 Dec 13
The big Question at an Indian Wedding: are they marrying a Stranger? – 28 Nov 13
Indian Fairytale Weddings – not so much Fun for Bride and Groom – 27 Nov 13
The Indian Wedding Setup through the Eyes of a Westerner – 26 Nov 13
Indian Hospitality makes sure non-Indian Guests get the Chance to attend Indian Weddings – 25 Nov 13
Opposites attract – so why arrange a Marriage within a Subcaste? – 22 Oct 13
I think, this problem is not caused by arranged marriage. A lot of couples married in love are in such a situation after some years. The dvorce rate in Europe is about 50%, but there are a lot of couples who don’t divorce because they think that it is a sin, or it is bad for their children, or bad for the financial situation or they are afraid of getting lonely …The root of the problem is that many people cannot really love. They don’t love themselves, so they cannot love others.