Marriage is a bond, not bondage

At a wedding, I overheard two youngsters cracking jokes about the newlywed couple, on how long they will remain married. I found it shocking but the conviction with which they were saying could not be missed.

Yes, this kind of cynicism and scepticism seems to have crept into the mindset of today’s youth, with regard to marriage. We see divorces happening at such jet speed, but cannot blame the youth if they are stuck in an unresolved mental debate on the issue of marriage, seeing it more like a business deal with lots of uncertainties or like a tough bondage where one's freedom is lost forever.

Marriage is supposed to bring two people's souls, minds and hearts together in its spiritual and emotional aspect and supposed to unite two bodies in conjugal way in its physical aspect.

But youngsters are so confused, they are becoming sceptical and indecisive. A long married life seems impossible and an utopian dream to them. Here is a story about how life is all about correcting mistakes and mending lives. The day her daughter got married, the mother present ed her with a bank saving passbook with a little amount as deposit and told her she should keep it as a record of her married life.

She told her daughter, “whenever something happy and memorable happens in your new life, put some money in and also write down the reason in the book. The more memorable and worthy the event is, the more money you can put in. I've done the first one for you today. Do the others with your husband. When you look back after many years, you will know how much of happiness you both have had as a couple.”

The couple started doing as told by the mother. So, from small to big amounts, on every small and big happy occasion, they deposited money and also wrote down the reason. As years passed, the couple started fighting over every issue and a day came when they thought they must separate through divorce.

When they expressed this to the mother, she told the daughter, “Okay, before you separate, just check the passbook to know how much of deposits you have, so that you can spend it all before separation.” When the daughter went to the bank to withdraw the money, she casually took a glance at all the reasons, why and when they had deposited the money – all the happy memories just came to her mind in a flash. Her eyes filled to the brim and she walked out of the bank, determined to make their marriage work.

She narrated what all had happened to her husband and handed over the passbook to him to decide. The next day, her husband returned the passbook with a new deposit added and the reason he wr- ote was –  ‘For all the joys we shared over the years and to celebrate our togetherness for years to come.’ Life is all about correcting mistakes – not disconnecting relationships.