Philosophy of Marriage : Please answer each segment with a 'Yes' or 'No' - if possible with reasons?

Q-8-4 Your friend seems to be indifferent to the idea of getting married, though he is growing older. What are your feelings about your friend’s such indifference?

1. It is his wish. He is ‘free’ to think or do whatever he likes.

2. Talk of such ‘freedom’ is indeed a bluff. Nobody is free to do what shouldn’t be done. So idea of ‘marriage’ is to be analyzed before he is declared right or wrong.

3. Yes. It needs to be settled. Blind indifference is not right.

4. Indefinite continuation of bachelorhood/ spinsterhood is not right on his/ her part as his/ her ‘reincarnation-in-reproduction’ is being postponed indefinitely.

5. ‘Reincarnation-in-reproduction’ will not be complete or successful, if it is postponed beyond a critical limit.

6. Conjugality and consequent family is an invisible chain. It may even be the strongest chain of bondage. He will be lucky if he can avoid ‘marriage’ in this life.

7. Marriage is a hindrance on the path of salvation.

8. He should marry. If not, he will have nobody to nurse his old age.

9. Isn’t it a bit of meanness - to extract out of marriage ‘unilateral personal benefits’ like ‘getting nursed in old age’? Freedom is never for free. He is ready to pay for freedom by risking his old age. He is brave and good and so, right too.

10. This may be the consequence of his ongoing indecision. He hasn’t yet collected enough clues that would lead him to a decision.

11. His ‘indifference’ isn’t a form of ‘satisfaction’ in any way. It is a potential danger as deep damaging anxiety is accumulating day by day.

Q-8-5 What is your feeling about ‘divorce’?

1. Divorce in general is ‘bilateral freedom’ and both spouses are the winner contenders.

2. Divorce in general is a ‘bilateral failure’ and both spouses are the losing contenders.

3. Divorce in general is an event in which the contender among the spouses wins and the other loses.

4. Divorce in general is a ‘tripartite failure’, if the divorced spouses have already an offspring begotten out of their marriage.

5. Divorced spouses may be likened to wounded soldiers who have been fighting with each other.

6. Divorced spouses may be likened to wounded soldiers who have been encountering together the common enemy called ‘human psychology’.

7. The spouses fell apart because of the exclusive fact that one was wronged by the other.

8. The spouses fell apart because both were novices in the ‘great dangerous game with intricate rules’ that was only partly known to them.

Q-8-6 What is your feeling about the ‘nature of marriage’?

1. It is originally a ‘sweet affair’ and should continue to be the same till the end.

2. Who said that it is originally ‘sweet’? It need not be originally sweet to be valuable.

3. Isn’t bitter medicine extremely useful? Marriage can be a medicine!! Isn’t it? And extremely useful. Isn’t it? I think so.

4. It isn’t a sweet affair inasmuch as sweetness is only its possible end product.

5. It is a sweet affair because it begins with love, the sweetest of all affairs.

6. So ‘love’ is sweet and marriage is only a ‘potential sweetness’.

7. In fact ‘love’ is greater than ‘marriage’ insofar as ‘marriage’ at times buries ‘love’ when ‘love’ always cultivates ‘marriage’ though it may at times fail to culminate in it.

8. ‘Love’ is the sensation of the potentiality that materializes in marriage.

9. ‘Marriage’ is an arrangement for ‘sustained sprouting coexistence’ when ‘love’ is ‘sparking transient contact’. Thus, ‘love’ may be likened to a thrillers frequented by ‘probe-suspense’ when ‘marriage’ is like a course of meal, progressively fulfilling.

10. Thus, ‘marriage’ is higher than ‘love’.

11. There isn’t the need for this superfluous term – ‘marriage’ – when ‘love’ is sufficient to bind the contenders in a ‘sustained coexistence’. Isn’t it? I think – yes.

12. Even acquaintance couldn’t coagulate into ‘love’ without the ‘mutual declaration of love’ (say – saying ‘I love you so much that I want to be with you forever’). Is this ‘ritual’ essential in this flimsy matter of ‘transient reciprocal probe’? Isn’t it avoidable? I think – yes.

13. This ‘ritual of love’ (‘mutual declaration of love’) is necessary and vital. Without it, ‘love’ couldn’t coagulate further.

14. What about the coming about of ‘sustained sprouting coexistence’? Would it require a more serious ‘mutual declaration’? I think – yes.

15. So, Shouldn’t this heavier ritual be named different from the previous ritual that was named ‘ritual of love’? I think – yes. Let it be called the ‘ritual of marriage’.

16. Thus, ‘love’ and ‘marriage’ are very different.

17. Thus, ‘love’ and ‘marriage’ are of same kind - varying in degree.

18. ‘Marriage’ varies from ‘love’ in kind, as the former is ‘decisive’ when the later is ‘tentative’.