This poem is about a woman who has a suspicious husband. Her life with him needs to end but can she take that leap away from the complacency that sets into every marriage? She needs to do what is right for her. She owes it to herself. Here's what I think of marriage.
What is it that will make a marriage a happy one? This question has remained unanswered in my mind as my boat of matrimony travels through sunny calm seas and choppy stormy oceans. But one thing is for certain, a marriage is about 2 well groomed sets of wings and not about a pair of handcuffs.
For a marriage to be a happy one, you have to be happy with yourself. Marry yourself and love yourself more that you love anything or anybody else, and when you do that your actions will speak for themselves. Fight for what you think is right. You owe yourself that.
The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
Marriages are not made in heaven but are lived in hell on earth. So are some marriages. Or are most so?
Most people enter the institution called marriage unable to fathom the depth of the narrow well they just jumped into, for love sings in their souls and sex growls in their groins. As they wake up from the cozy dream, the rigmarole of the breakfast roll and tired nightly hit-the-roll can be so taxing and unnerving that love, and then sex, flies out of the window.
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
The so called 'division of labour' was designed to keep this institution in good working order, well oiled and organized. But with changing times, the unequal equation became unbalancingly unequal. That's when the blame game takes over, a horrible game that takes its toll on the health and the well being of the members of the sacred institution called marriage, which includes the children.
Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder.
Are women of today happy 'tending only to hearth and birth' as a career option? Is self worth and expression in the market place taking precedence over an ordinary existence? As more and more women are seen out there looking successful and beautiful, the drudgery of domesticity is something a woman is forced to do. and surely not something she would opt to do!
In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar - a practice which is still continued.
Anger and regret swim about
Chasing each other in the sea of confusion,
She cursed the day she set her eyes upon
The man she felt she could live with forever.
What was it she liked in him
That she her life joined with him.
Was it the silence she thought attractive?
But Alas! Each silence, an untold secret!
Sparks did fly for the chemistry was there,
Unanalyzed chemistry that shocked and awed.
Out-awed but in shock, for years of wedlock
Had drained her of both self worth and health.
Every argument ended in a spray of venom
About her character and her sexuality,
Suspicions and allegations spoken of,
A device wielded to scissor dissent!
Why does a man use loose phrases with
Mouthfulls of them in gratis fashion,
Every time the woman dares speak up
About the way she feel things should run?
On a privileged pedestal he thus elevated,
In his closed mind and in his soaring soul,
All voices that reach out to him loud
Are voices he wishes fatal silence on!
Built is the male psyche with bricks so peculiar,
Unmovable blocks reinforced with lies,
Taught, molded and cast since birth,
Lovingly cured by men and women alike.
End of a marriage is not the end of a life,
Fortunately, life is more than just a marriage!
The greatest marriage is the one with oneself,
A bond that no loose words can ever break.
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009-all rights reserved
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