Weddings and Marriages
For those of you who don't know much about me, or is your first time here (Hi!), I'm 26 years old. I'll be 27 this November, which essentially makes me a dinosaur in this whole wedding and societal context. Before we go further, I just want to say if you are married, and you are happy with your decisions, I'm very happy for you and I will in no way be shaming marriage in this article. I believe in the institution of marriage, but this article is for those of us who are made to feel inferior for not having been married by now, i.e., a certain age. For those of us who are made to feel less than for not having a man by our side (I can't even go into LGBT relationships). For those of us who are made to feel like a failure no matter how accomplished we are in other elements of our life just because we don't have a ring on our finger.
The whole "So, are you dating anyone?" came my way within a year after I finished my degree. My parents were hit with "So, are you looking for anyone for your daughter?" #arrangedmarriages I was 23 years old. When I hit 25, the questions became more pointed. "You're still not dating?" "You still haven't found anyone for your daughter?" And then the questions became statements. "Sure, at your wedding." "So, when is your daughter's wedding?" Don't get me wrong, I want to get married someday. In the sense that I want to have a loving partner and someone to grow old with someday. But that is not what society means when it asks when you are getting married or if you are dating anyone. Society doesn't mean if your parents have found someone loving for you when they ask your parents if they have found anyone for you (And when you are past a certain age, forget all that, just any barely decent man would do, her clock's ticking!) Society doesn't acknowledge that you are starting a new journey when it asks "When's the wedding?" Society doesn't care about your values in a marriage and it most certainly doesn't care if the wedding is going to last when it goes "When's the wedding?" Society doesn't want a marriage for you. It wants a wedding. And no, they are not the same thing, they really are not. One is a ceremony and celebrations, and one is the act of living with someone, deemed acceptable by law. Go ahead and look it up. Society wants to see a ceremony where they can come and poke around. Society wants a ceremony where it can mingle with people (Maybe even find someone for their own daughters at another person's wedding) and then talk about it to people later. Society wants a party.
Once upon a time, marriages were about keeping power within the family, for movement of power and legalised methods for procreation. But over time it has evolved. Over the last 50 or so years, it has become fairly well accepted that it's an act of love and that you are marrying an equal. And that's how some people treat it. Most people treat it as something you need to have done by a certain age, like education. Like an item on a checklist. A checklist that is going to follow you around - You thought you were free from society's eyes once you got married - Excuse me. I mean, held a wedding? No, no my friend. You're going to be followed with - "So, when are you having a kid? When are you having another kid?" And depending on how conservative of a society you live in, get ready for a follow up question on "Do you want to try for another one and see if it's a boy since the previous two have been girls?" Then it continues with "How are you raising the child? What school are you putting the child in? What degree is your child going to study?" Until one day you are hit with the almighty "When is your kid getting married?" Circle of life.
Society treats getting married at a certain age like an accomplishment. But in my opinion, getting married is not an accomplishment. An accomplishment means something I did well in, something I worked for to achieve. A skill or task I perfected with practice. Something that was in my control. My career or my education is an accomplishment. But coming across someone you click with, and fall in love with, is not something you can practice. And most certainly something you can't do by a certain age. Putting together a wedding ceremony is not something you can work for and perfect until you have reached the peak performance level. Most people who got married will tell you how much they bungled on their wedding day anyway. Getting married is not in your control and therefore, not an accomplishment. Staying married with someone would be an accomplishment - when you learn to deal with someone's flaws on a daily basis. When you look for ways to keep the initial fire alive. When you choose to stay in love with them for the rest of your life.
It's disappointing how society treats you when you are not married by a certain age. Like I mentioned before, when you cross a certain age, you have to get married by hook or by crook. People suggest that you compromise on things one by one - cultures, values, age, religions, the list goes on. The older you get, the lesser people expect you to have to expectations. It's ironic how most of society is married already, and should know by now what could happen when you compromise on so much of your beliefs. Yet, they don't expect you to do just that. It's almost like society has forgotten that a wedding is like a pregnancy that has all the fun and the fireworks, while a marriage is like raising a decent human being. In other words, a marriage, has a lot of responsibilities and work to it. And most of us who get married, want to stay married. So how much work do you expect us to put in, now that we have compromised on our basic beliefs and values? It's disappointing when society treats you like a sell-by product on the shelf that has to "sold" by a certain age.
It's not even like I hate wedding ceremonies either, in case you are wondering right now. I cry at every single ceremony, regardless of whether I know the bride or the groom. I want to hold a wedding ceremony, with all my Hindu rituals because it's important to me. But the attitude society has towards weddings is so warped as well. We should be celebrating someone getting married like a birthday, that it's a joyous life event. We should be happy for someone that they are lucky enough to find someone they can share their life with. But almost every single wedding I have been to involves discussion of the expenses, the location, if you're on the bride's side, about the groom's family and vice versa and "Did you know she's already 28? She needs to have kids soon or it's going to be difficult for her. And look at the saree she's wearing. Is it even silk? Did you know they are only serving water and not lemonade?" All of which that just brings me to the question of "Who is a wedding for?"
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