Getting Married Getting Laid

15 Aug 2009

Increasingly, I’m told, women are going in for live-in relationships in urban India. Really? How come I haven’t seen even one such case in my entire circle of friends and acquaintances? Perhaps because you don’t connect with the ‘right’ kind of people, is the comeback. Oho, so people living in sin are the ‘right kind’, are they? Okay, let’s not get into social politics.
Coming back to the original point. Live-in relationships. I would term it slightly differently. I would call it ‘know-him’ relationship. And most of us don’t have that privilege. We only know him on our ‘first night’, the night of the date rape.
A woman of my acquaintance was very anxious to get her twenty-six year old daughter married off. In this woman’s opinion (though she didn’t exactly express it like this) her daughter was way past her sell-by date, and needed to get married quickly in order to escape permanent singlehood. She had arranged for her daughter to see several men, all of whom the young woman had rejected on purely rational grounds. Now, finally the right guy had been unearthed. He was the right height, had the right qualifications, was from the right family and was, most importantly, willing to enter into the giant hoax that we in India call an arranged marriage. Now, she said with an air of finality, there was no reason for the erring daughter to reject the ‘boy’. Oh no? How about the fact that perhaps there might not be that vital chemistry between the couple? That the right height did not necessarily mean the right hormones kicking into action? But I didn’t say so to the mother. I knew she wouldn’t understand. Chemistry is what is taught in those filthy, smelly labs in school.
I might have suggested that before the young woman is badgered into seeing the various advantages that the prospective groom has, she should be allowed to be dated by the said man, properly dated, as in starting with a drink in a public bar to ending with a tangle between the sheets at an undisclosed location, the whole thing taking its own time, depending on the inertia built into the relationship. Then, and only then, should the man be allowed to flaunt his other ‘assets’.
Thank god nobody asks me about how to get their daughter married off. I’m sure they won’t like the answer. In this case, the young man declared his undying devotion to the girl within a week of knowing her, knowing her as in taking her out to a couple of restaurants and admitting her to two family celebrations. In another week the engagement was celebrated. The date rape is scheduled for two months later. In the meantime, the courting couple is busy getting each other’s measure, sorry, I mean measurements, for the trousseau, of course.
What does all this have to do with CNMO? I’m not sure. Except perhaps Ruts would endorse everything that I’ve said.

2

Truly, if mums spoke to you about marrying their daughter’s off, ur son (if & not engaged) would remain a bachelor forever…Well, it’s sometimes nice to come in touch with a guy without the ‘If not in the bed, it’s in the head’ look or one who does not think that there is a fourth basic necessity to daily life which could be as annoying as pleasurable…Sex!…atleast that spares women from being the ‘I’ve got a headache’ victims…and whats ‘getting laid and marriage’ to do with CNMO, well I guess thats just the ‘sexual collective unconscious mind of those youthful days when the physical and mental fought the wars of attraction…’ Bold read to start with. Cheers…

Shefalle... 26.Aug.2009 10:18 am
You touched upon an extremely interesting concept. I would think, live-in is quite rampant in the upper middle class, young professionals, living alone in large metros. In fact, many I knew were ‘technically’ living-in. ‘Technically’ because they had different establishments but ended up spending many days and nights together. You wouldn’t really think they spending time together to read the holy texts!!

The common thread among all these people was that they were B-school grads, earning well, interacting with the opposite gender quite freely, open to experimenting with life and most importantly, living away from their families. They either suppressed what they had been fed as morality or tried discovering a new perspective.

The concept of ‘sin’ and ‘morality’ is at least getting challenged if not redefined. I have heard people describe it as a ‘cool’ thing to do. The incidence of divorces has gone up. It was unheard of in the immediate circle when I was growing up, but now it is becoming a bit difficult to keep track of multiple spouses of close friends.

Divorce is a painful and lengthy process. Why incur the expenses of marraige and realize pretty soon that you are in a dysfunctional relationship and go through the harrowing experience of divorce. Isn’t ‘try and buy’ a better option?
Also, ‘getting laid’ and ‘getting married’ need to be delinked. Linking the two assumes a certain rationality if there is a desire for children. Else, why complicate experiments with commitments.

That doesn’t in any way mean I advocate indiscrimante coupling. After all, every relationship has an emotional baggage. Too much, can play havoc with your pysche. Exercise discretion, experiment and evaulate.

Rama Tadepalli 27.Aug.2009 9:29 am