Marriage -- Then and Now (part II)

My previous blog post is to some degree in favor of the notion that "marriage is the grave of love affairs". I got to hide that post away from being seen by my wife. To my view point the female agree with this saying more than the male do, but once they got married they tend to bury it deep in their minds and try not to mention it. Because otherwise, what can they do? They are locked up, and so do the male.

It sounds very miserable, isn't it? It is true. I have seen so many real examples including my own case, none of them is free from complaining each other occasionally. I believe when they engage in verbal fighting, the saying of "marriage is the grave of love affairs" comes up their mind. It is a very powerless situation, you just got to be conceded with the reality.

I believe there is almost no exception among all the married couples in the world that throughout their marriage life they never had the thought of getting divorce flashed across their minds. I say so, because it arose in my mind many times, though fortunately it did not stay forever, otherwise if it manifested a step further, it will definitely hurt the relationship and consequently will bring marriage into the grave for sure. If all my friends and relatives say that my marriage is a very harmonious one, and yet, the aforesaid secretive thought of mine still arise occasionally, then you will realize how delicate the marriage life is, and why the divorce rate nowadays rockets year by year in our society.

I'm not saying to my next generation that marriage is dreadful; is fragile, and so they should stay away from marriage, and lead a celibate lifestyle throughout their life. Actually I'm trying to make clear my disposition about marriage as that it is our responsibility to get married and to manage it nicely if we tick yes to most of the following guidelines.

1. Are you healthy physically and mentally?
2. Are you on a full-time job, or in a business that can support your family financially?
3. Do you agree that he or she has certain characteristics that attracted you during your dating period?
4. Do you think that on major issues such as religious belief, political stands, moral values yours are quite agreeable to your partner's?

Give your answers to the above questions honestly, and if all the answers are positive, then, man, especially those with good genes, should find no grounds to stay away from entering marriage, because marriage is a form of guarantee; commitment; duty; actualization to your love affairs. Despite that it is true, we still see a lot of candidates wandering about the door of marriage, being reluctant to enter it, until some new factors emerge and force them into either marriage or flight. And I think choosing flight is the majority.

Why is that? There are many factors that can fire a flight. The most common one, as far as I can think of, is the fading love ingredients. When a relationship gets stuck in this situation, both of them suffer, and I finally realize why there are psychologists or counselors everywhere nowadays.

I'm not a psychologist so I cannot help people in this type of suffering scientifically. But I believe the cure can be found in tradition and in spiritualism. My prescription will be like in the following.

• Avoid living under the same roof, or observe strict celibacy for as long as possible before marriage.
• Spare at least 15 minutes every day to proceed indoctrination, brainwash. Get your preferred passages from Bible, Sutra, or whatever that last 15 minutes long when you chant those inspirational passages.
• Believe in causality. Believe that everything we do matters, even a very trivial deed brings its consequence. So be conscientious in what you did, what you said, what you thought.

Sounds very stupid? But when you paid the bills to the professional and still get no cure, then this is one you should try, at least it is free, and all you could suffer is 15 minutes, but most important is that you have done something to the rescue of your marriage issue.

Marriage - Then and Now

There was a popular saying in the early 1960s in Taiwan, "marriage is the cemetery of love affair" so it said. This phrase was often heard during my junior high school days. Young people, especially female, in that era liked to comment on marriage by quoting that phrase whenever a hot debate or chat on that topic was coming to an end.

As a small boy I, in my early teens, dimly understood what that phrase meant. It was the fashionable way of saying "once you get married, love affairs will be gone" in those days.

Looking back, I am very sure it was because young people at that time was beginning to have more freedom in making friends with opposite sex. Once they began to go dating with each other, they were overwhelmed by the sweetness, nervousness, and excitement that streamed out of their love affairs. But all these honey tastes faded away soon after they got married due to various reasons. Then they concluded, "marriage is the cemetery of love affairs", this must be it.

I remembered it was during 1960s when the romance fiction writer,Qiong Yao won the position of the most the popular novelist in Taiwan. Her stories captured the hearts of young people, particularly girls. Her books were brought to school secretly because the disciplinary authority of the school was very annoyed to see so many girls reading Qiong Yao's fiction during the class time.

I agree that Qiong Yao's fiction has some magic power. I remembered in the summer vocation of my second year in the junior high school, when I was about 13 years old, I found a copy of Qiong Yao's fiction placed on sister's desk.

Before that day, I used to be criticizing her fiction as unhealthy and depressing, and I had never read any of her books. But out of curiosity that day, I picked up the book and started reading it. As soon as I had finished the second page, I was totally absorbed into the story titled "outside the window". It is a story about the love between a high school student girl and her most admired class teacher. I was so deeply fascinated by that story that I read without a break throughout the night and finished it in the next morning in one go.

Therefore under the influence of Qiong Yao's fictions, I witnessed the beginning of what was then called "free love", meaning, unlike their parents' generation in which abiding by match-maker's arrangement was a tradition, instead, they are free to pursue friend of opposite sex whom they admire. Qiong Yao's books brought young people abundant of imageries about the beautifulness, sweetness, excitedness or even bitterness of love.

I think that was why my generation saw most of the young people never hesitated in entering the marriage. That covers across a range of life stages, for instance, pursuing, love-letter writing, dating, engagement, wedding, parenting. And if they are lucky enough, they fulfill their marriage successfully till the end of their lives.

Unfortunately a great percentage of marriage falls in the following pattern.

The sweetness remained growing steadily during the dating period and reached its peak when they just entered their marriage stage. Then the sweetness found in the love affairs started its declining process. Why? Because there are so many factors that may shake the foundation of their love affairs, such as parenting, if they have children right after their marriage; bills to be paid; relationship issues relating to in-laws; and etc..

Most of the marriages are maintained in a functional only state in my generation, only a very few of them are able to claim that theirs are the sweetest and the most successful ones. Though many of them are disappointed with their marriage lives, the traditional values such as mutual respect, toleration and patience and etc., taught by their parents and in school do help them manage to keep their marriage moving forward.

Thirty seven years after I got married, I am now watching how my next generation's marriage philosophy is like. My observation tells me that a majority of them dread the idea of getting married. Why? I think it is something to do with the overall out-of-balance of materialism and spiritualism in the modern society.

The materialism is looked upon as far more important than spiritualism, and this results in herding the young into a logic of material guarantees successful marriage. So, before they reach their preset goal of income, they tend to avoid entering marriage. But the material world changes so rapidly, by the time they reach their preset goal, the income has been devalued or more new stuff are there to tempt their desire, so they have to reset the goal, and it seems to be endless, just like a dog chasing its own tail.

People tend to think that the more money you have the more successful your marriage will be. Most people believe money is equivalent to happiness. But the ancient saints and sages have already told us that is not true. "Happiness comes from within", they said. And this is what the spiritualism is about.

So my advice to my children is to constantly watch the scale of materialism and the spiritualism in the mind and always keep them in balance, and leave the rest of the matter to the hands of Buddha.