Karthik Kastury

Marriage : To Augment or Compliment?

It’s the marriage season again! A good number of people from my batch are slowly starting to get married (just the girls for now!). Four years of college, and two years of corporate life, I’ve seen a good number of relations fail, and a good number of them that are still going strong. I myself have been thru more than one failed relations over the past few years. The reason I’m writing this post, to state my stance on this very issue that’s delicate for many.

Whether or not a relation will survive, I think is best explained by the answer to the question that the title of this blog post raises. Confused? Let me try and explain with a simple analogy. When you stay over at many hotels breakfast is provided as a complimentary service. Does that make you happy? It doesn’t make much of a difference to me, but keeps my wallet happy. But many a time I’ve been pleasantly surprised when the restaurant provides out of the way to give me an awesome experience, sort of like giving me the dessert for free after a meal. 

The reason I make this analogy is quite simple, are you something of a complimentary element in your partners life, or someone who augments his/her life? If you augment your partners life, there is a good chance the two of you will make it, if not the chances are much lesser. There is a small difference in the two words, and if you understand that, you are on your way. 

The one other aspect that I’ve seen in most college romances is, that things simply stop working once you are no longer in the same place together. In other words Long Distance = Failure for many! I’ve seen the strongest of relationships go down this way. Why does this happen? In my dictionary there are two simple reasons, Lack of Trust and Male Chauvinism. I think Lack of Trust is easily explained, but Male Chauvinism I’m sure will be quite a surprise to those of you reading this post. 

The male gender in most of the failed relations I’ve seen stops trusting the other person in the relation. If the girl hangs out with a new bunch of guys, the guy almost invariably stops trusting the girl. This happens surprisingly often than you’d realize. Over the years, this is one behavioral trait in men that hasn’t changed. We’ve always seen the female gender a level below, and that needs to change. 

In this day and age, Love Marriages are slowly getting quite common, but arranged marriages is still common. One thing that I’ve repeatedly heard is men who are earning quite well enough, ask their partner to give up on their jobs, and take care of the house and the family. This surprises me frankly! I’m sure in most cases your partner is just as well educated, and has a good job. In your argument, you are making her give up everything she’s done in the past 20+ years. In India this problem still remains. And 60+ years of independence and rapid strides in Education hasn’t changed that. 

The Male Chauvinism is probably a bigger problem in Marriages today in India, than any other reason in failed marriages. Men you need to realize that that the Women in your life isn’t a compliment, but she’s there to augment your life, and you need to reciprocate. 

It’s high time our society evolved to consider everyone as equals. If you are reading this, and when you tie the knot, remember to ask yourself this question. Are you augmenting your partners life, or complimenting it? 

Here’s to hoping that you are not the free breakfast, but the awesome dessert to top up your partners life everyday :)

God bless! Debates/Comments most welcome ;)

P.S This post is inspired completely by what I’ve seen and experienced over the past few months, you don’t need to put in the efforts to read between the lines :P