It is refreshing to learn of the interesting findings of the Sikh youth seminar relating to Sikh marriage. As reported in our columns last week a seminar with the them title “Are Marriages made in Heaven” was held in Washington a fortnight back. Over 40 post teenage and teenage university and high school students attended the seminar ‘Some three hundred years back the inquisitive anthropologists and sociologists coined the term “arranged marriages” while describing the tradition of marriage in the Asian context. The term continues to stick to date although it conveys a false or at least incorrect notion of the solemn custom. This is particularly so in the case of “Anand Karaj” or the Sikh marriage tradition. Data on the western marriage system shows that the divorce rate in the western World is a whopping 72 percent cover a twenty five years span; 52 percent marriages dissolving in the first five years and nearly 65 percent marriages breaking up in a first fifteen years. This phenomenon takes place despite the fact that western men and women live together for years before marriage to test their compatibility.
The main reasons for this phenomenon are not hard to find: The live in arrangement robs the marriage of its intrinsic joy expectations; love or passing affection blinds one to the faults of the other partner which later takes a toll in the form a nasty divorce and most importantly the western youth refuses to seek the counsel and consultation from their parents, friends and relations.
On the other hand only two percent of Sikh and Indian marriages end in divorce although this rate is inching up. ‘These marriages are typical “counseled or assisted” marriages where parents, friends and relative help formalize the union. The word “arranged marriages’ is a misnomer for the decision who to marry rests with the person concerned and the parents and friends only assist the person in making a sound choice. Indeed there are others reasons also for the low divorce rate: For instance lack of female financial independence, family support and the community expectations against divorce. On a positive note Sikh families and friends helped the partners to ride through the nastiness of a troubled marriage.
It is curious that while individuals spend months and years researching and visiting places to select a college of their choice they barely consult anyone in matters of selection of their life partners. Surely proper and positive counseling or consultation with parents, relative and friends is likely to produce stable and happier marriages.
Some of the essential ingredients of a happy and long lasting marriage are sharing, caring, giving in absence of secrets, joint planning of financial matters, encouragement to spouse, special regards and affection for the spouse’s parents and so on.
There is evidence to show that marriages based on traditional values and the concept of “Anand Karaj” are likely to be more stable and longer lasting. Furthermore the Sikh marriage tradition, with some exceptions, rejects dowry caste and ritualism and treats the partners strictly as equals.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 18, 1989
