An excerpt from the book 'Marrying Anita', by Anita Jain
For years, I never questioned the Western dating system. The tenets on which it rests seemed perfectly sound: after meeting a man or woman through work or friends, one gets to know him o rher, and if one likes what one sees, one continues to deepen the commitment, which sometimes leads to marriage. What surprises me is how much this system leaves to chance encounter, to a kind of fate or fortune. For a decidedly unmystical society that seems to have the answer for everything else- the best medical care, cutting-edge technology, super highways and space shuttles- it seems odd that people are left to their own resources, casting around for another lonely soul, for what is arguably the most important decision of their lives.
If the institution of marriage is present in every society that we know of, from Lapps in northern Sweden to aborigines, and nearly all cultures promote marriage as the foundation of society, isn't it odd, then, that there is very little provision for how it is supposed to occur in the West? I puzzled over this gap and eventually arrived at a "the emperor has no clothes" conclusion.
It was so obvious no organized system for marriage existed in the West that people simply failed to blame the obvious for why they couldn't find someone to marry. They were told by their therapists and their friends that it was because they were too neurotic, too unhappy, had to work on themselves before they could be happy with someone else, or that they wanted it too badly. People are told to blame themselves, and they do: they try to lose weight, they develop new interests, they get a nose job. We wonder what's wrong with us when really we should wonder whether there isn't a better way of doing things. It is a curious misplacement for a self-congratulatory culture in which people are constantly trying to shift blame away from themselves.
Once I began questioning the efficacy of the Western dating system in resulting in marriage, I started wondering why it is that wanting to be committed to someone else is too often associated with weakness in the West. I noticed that when people were happily self sufficient, they liked to preach how they weren't looking for a serious commitment and didn't have time for one. It was only when they were dissatisfied that they began to think of marriage or commitment as a solution. But how many people are happily self sufficient?
Does marriage have to be a salve to loneliness to have value? Isn't it valuable to begin with? In the West, the modern ideal is to be independent, on one's own, and to be able to make the choice to live with another human being, to welcome someone else as a bonus to one's existence- if and when one is ready.
Couldn't one be a perfectly sound person who leads a far more purposeful life once engaged in a harmonious symbiosis with another human being? I certainly think so. Moreover, why do we have to be 'perfectly sound' before we can meet someone? Why can't we be desperately alone and unhappy and become much more balanced or healthy after getting involved with someone?
We've all seen this happen with friends- "God, Peter seems so much happier now that he's going out with Jessica. He's not drinking as much." Conventional wisdom frequently tells us that we're happier when we give to others and focus less on ourselves, so it seems rather a glaring void that there is no instituionalized system of finding a mate in Western culture these days.
To admit to others that I yearned for a long-term commitment or marriage- which is basically to say that I wanted to be able to think about someone else for a change- sounded regressive as soon as it emerged from my mouth. It was atavistic in nature, a throwback to a time when women couldn't financially support themselves. It was a piece of trecherous anathema in the age of strong, independent working women.
Of course, marriages were more or less arranged in Western cultures according to one's social status and welath until the twentieth century, which ushered in a freewheeling era that allowed people to choose their own mates. However, no system stepped in to replace the practice of arranged marriage once it fell by the wayside, leaving a lof of young men and women lonely and frustrated. In the West, people are so resolutely convinced that they alone are equipped to choose their own mates that they readily give up their right to happiness in favour of self determination.
In India, where marriages are routinely arranged by parents and extended family, marriage is not a choice. It just is. There is simply no concept of living a life alone. It happens here and there, but as a mistake, an unintentional slippage in society. In the West, people do it all the time, even relish it, saying things like, "I would rather live alone that with the wrong person." But spend ten minutes with most of these people and it becomes apparent that they are lonely.
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