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.