As i continue to grow up, every moment, each hour, every day, each month and every year, i have seen my perception of marriages changing from a unification of two souls to mere business transactions. Ok he is rich, perfect, marry him, he can feed me for the rest of my lives. Financial security is important but is it so important ?. I have seen relatives boasting about the rich amount of dowry they get, about the quantity of gold their daughter in law has brought from her house. Even i used to think, cool man, get married and be rich, life is set. You grow mature with age though and realize that life is just not about materialistic comforts, its sometimes much more than that, even the richest men and women have lived their life in misery and loneliness. Marriage has bought misery to many rather than happiness and the lives of many have been screwed. Companionship for name sake and loneliness for the rest of your lives along with a dose of mental abuse and sometimes physical as well. A well settled guy earning big and a good looking girl who hails from a rich family, perfect match but their marriage falls apart within a few months, within a few years, why so. Taking dowry is wrong, a big criminal offense but even guys are scrutinised on the amount of bucks they earn, the possessions they have. A girlfriend you loved for all this years will leave you to marry a well settled guy because her parents asked her to, the reason given would be that you don't earn enough to keep me happy and my parents didn't like you. The pressure to earn big has taken a toll on many. I have seen people spending their life time savings on the marriage of their children and then leading a life of a pauper, how ridiculous is that. Something is seriously wrong with our society or we all together have gone nuts, i have seen marriages of my friends falling apart, i have seen the financial stress that my married brothers go through. One brother even adviced me to start saving, living life at the edge is a dangerous. Because marriage is a hullabulla affair in our society, everyone comes and wishes you, there is a big party that happens, but once the party is over, you and your wife are left alone to clean the mess. As if like an object you are dissected into pieces and observed carefully, your pros and cons are weighed, like we all do when we buy a product from the market but many a times if a guy earns well, all his flaws are ignored and he is projected in full glory. A guy who earns less, his flaws would be seen with a magnifying lens and he would be projected as someone who would spoil the life of a girl. So its money that leads the proceedings, Dowry before marriage and alimony after divorce. Everytime someone talks about marriage with me, i would be like bleh, i would rather be a priest than an ATM machine. Anti-matrimonial feelings in me were getting stronger with each passing day, until i came upon this story one day :-
The ideal example :-
My marriage is a little over 4 years old. The boy on the matrimonial site who stared at me had a profile that weighed low by “market trends” - a 25 year old post graduate who was just 6+ months in his job that required him to work in 3 shifts, earning less than 3 LPA, with already 3 dependents to take care of - his parents and grandmother. Obviously, he was rejected by many girls, insulted by many for “daring” to marry with such a low income, in a metropolitan city as Chennai.
I do not know what led me to click the accept button, and suddenly he and his family decided to come over to meet me and my family. In our first meet, he told me about his financial status, that he had a virtually continuing credit-loan account in bank, some 3 EMI’s to pay, and no property except his bike (that too on loan). He also told me of his struggle to get a job, and that had to work in several unaccredited jobs to pay off family loans. At that time, all this did not matter to me at all. All that mattered was that he was a post graduate who knows to take care of his family. And that he is a fighter.
To put it in a nutshell, I had decided to go to a virtually broke but closely knit household.
We married, and from then on the concept of “your salary” and “my salary” ceased. It became “our money”. (I am a Physiotherapist, and Physios do not earn very well, and my parents aren’t well off either.) With our money, we closed our loans one by one, balanced the bank credit loans, and steadied the budget scales. We delayed having a child, as we could not afford my LOP with a maternity break.
After 3 years of marriage, we were blessed with a cute little daughter. My husband is a wonderful man, he takes care of our daughter in every possible way except breastfeed her… Last year we purchased a home, our own dream haven. today, we maintain our credit balance as Rs. 0.00/-, the only EMI we pay is our home loan. We have seen many ups and downs, sudden medical emergencies, death, pink slips, etc etc, but we bore them and strode through them TOGETHER. Everything we have today is a result of our 4 year toil together, with a strong basement given to us by our family.
If the 3LPA mattered to me that day, my life would have been different. I might have been richer, but whether would be satisfied? I do not want to know.
Money is but a part of life.
Some hope it gave, a sunlight penetrated through the cracks in a dark room.....
May be marriage is about companionship, if we get a true companion to share our happiness and woes, its a bliss.
If we don't, its a curse.
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