One of my gyans with which I have bored many other so called intellectual people like me , is trying to decipher the difference between love , sex and marriage.Seemingly the entire set-up looks like a plot to have sex and lessen complications. Do not know how the world could have been if polyandry , polygamy, orgy was all there and how the social structure would have been . Would the framework been a workable one?Could that make humans do something more productive than being reproductive? However the purpose of my post is not to fanthom that. I simply wanted to draw a line between the the three.Personally I have always believed that sex and love should be together , marriage is of course more of a social matter and can vary depending on many things.But then as I have grown up, going through my own carnal curve, and also having the chance to have open discussions with some other people, befuddles me a lot.
For example,how do you explain men going to prostitutes.Most men..i am not qualified enough to judge on their behalf (and i cant help on my gender!!), ..when they have sex with a prostitute, may be first time sex, experience the sheer joy of discovering a new machine and how it works.They satisfy their carnal desires at the basic level. But then diminishing returns hits upon. just like no porn is enough!
And how is that different from your first kiss with the girl friend or perhaps making love aka sex with a girl where there's a "chhupao-dikhao" attitude.It makes it a bigger jolt for them.. love making is an additional spice which helps in both enticing a girl and also giving that "unknown" factor..and all of us are always enticed by unknown.
But at basic level guess its only the carnal desire..different people based on their upbringing and mental built will try to rationalize it differently.And hence comes the various definitions of it and the thousand variations.
One can feel the typical sexual attraction for someone and then make oneself believe that it's love , because may be he/she might have grown up with the idea that one cannot have sex without love.
And again , the other kind can be , that one does all the things that are typically done in a so called romantic relationship, and still claim that he/she is not in love, may be because he was too deprived of love (love of family, friends including self esteem) ,so much so that he becomes afraid of love .
Another category, typically one of the sub-categories of arranged marriage, where people have had repeated failed relationships and hence do not want to take any chance.So they want marriage first and then leave it to their destiny to fall in love, which actually happens, because by their definition, marriage has happened and love will follow. They know that this husband or wife is someone to ensure that he or she does not fall in the social outlier category . What happens after this kind of marriage no one asks or is interested..our social inquisitiveness is active only at certain points like why not getting married, why not having kids, why divorce etc etc. The journey in between is lost and not to be mentioned.
And none of us want to have a lonely life.So we need company and marriage also ensures this. One of my friends once made this comment, which I aptly remember..marriage ensures with whom you are going on vacation 5 years down the line.So true.
Sometimes we also marry to hedge our future loneliness.I don't personally advocate that.I would rather prefer dying alone than be in a company that I don't enjoy for 40 years.
And then the mushrooming other versions of love, sex..phone sex, chat sex..no frills sex....somewhere love is lost..does it even exist? ever?
I have always advocated and admired relations that are anonymous..its not required to have a name..to call it love or marriage..but it's required to have a responsibility , to turn back and see and take up or give up something , then only its a relation.It doesn't matter whether it has a name to it, whether it is a clandestine affair or not, but being responsible is required.I can see one valid reason for marriage that way.It makes the whole affair public, sets some standardized rules.Otherwise every person can have his or her own set of rules..no less than a many- to-many complication that would have arose from polyandry/polygamy.
Coming back to love..I would still believe and deeply believe that love exists , but yes I am heavily biased by my own upbringing, my parents and since I like to stick to my own funda, yes love exists. And it exists in taking responsibility, not just sincerely feeling for someone, but making an effort to make the person happy.Just like sex is basic, love also is innate and you have to take some risk to get yourself enlightened with it .If you don't you certainly are going to miss something :)
For example,how do you explain men going to prostitutes.Most men..i am not qualified enough to judge on their behalf (and i cant help on my gender!!), ..when they have sex with a prostitute, may be first time sex, experience the sheer joy of discovering a new machine and how it works.They satisfy their carnal desires at the basic level. But then diminishing returns hits upon. just like no porn is enough!
And how is that different from your first kiss with the girl friend or perhaps making love aka sex with a girl where there's a "chhupao-dikhao" attitude.It makes it a bigger jolt for them.. love making is an additional spice which helps in both enticing a girl and also giving that "unknown" factor..and all of us are always enticed by unknown.
But at basic level guess its only the carnal desire..different people based on their upbringing and mental built will try to rationalize it differently.And hence comes the various definitions of it and the thousand variations.
One can feel the typical sexual attraction for someone and then make oneself believe that it's love , because may be he/she might have grown up with the idea that one cannot have sex without love.
And again , the other kind can be , that one does all the things that are typically done in a so called romantic relationship, and still claim that he/she is not in love, may be because he was too deprived of love (love of family, friends including self esteem) ,so much so that he becomes afraid of love .
Another category, typically one of the sub-categories of arranged marriage, where people have had repeated failed relationships and hence do not want to take any chance.So they want marriage first and then leave it to their destiny to fall in love, which actually happens, because by their definition, marriage has happened and love will follow. They know that this husband or wife is someone to ensure that he or she does not fall in the social outlier category . What happens after this kind of marriage no one asks or is interested..our social inquisitiveness is active only at certain points like why not getting married, why not having kids, why divorce etc etc. The journey in between is lost and not to be mentioned.
And none of us want to have a lonely life.So we need company and marriage also ensures this. One of my friends once made this comment, which I aptly remember..marriage ensures with whom you are going on vacation 5 years down the line.So true.
Sometimes we also marry to hedge our future loneliness.I don't personally advocate that.I would rather prefer dying alone than be in a company that I don't enjoy for 40 years.
And then the mushrooming other versions of love, sex..phone sex, chat sex..no frills sex....somewhere love is lost..does it even exist? ever?
I have always advocated and admired relations that are anonymous..its not required to have a name..to call it love or marriage..but it's required to have a responsibility , to turn back and see and take up or give up something , then only its a relation.It doesn't matter whether it has a name to it, whether it is a clandestine affair or not, but being responsible is required.I can see one valid reason for marriage that way.It makes the whole affair public, sets some standardized rules.Otherwise every person can have his or her own set of rules..no less than a many- to-many complication that would have arose from polyandry/polygamy.
Coming back to love..I would still believe and deeply believe that love exists , but yes I am heavily biased by my own upbringing, my parents and since I like to stick to my own funda, yes love exists. And it exists in taking responsibility, not just sincerely feeling for someone, but making an effort to make the person happy.Just like sex is basic, love also is innate and you have to take some risk to get yourself enlightened with it .If you don't you certainly are going to miss something :)
