The divorce virus affected society

Harsha Mohan Sarma

(The writer can be reached at harshasarma183@gmail.com)

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

–Mignon McLaughlin

Husband-wife unrest is a major problem in the present social system. The news of a house feud between husband and wife is now a routine affair. If somewhere the husband has killed his wife, then somewhere else the wife has stabbed the husband with a machete. Many others are seeking divorce without quarrelling, but there are differences of mind and failures in adjustment. Fifteen to twenty divorce cases are coming up in court in each district every day. Many cases have gone unregistered due to a lack of courage and social shame on both sides. Unwillingly, they have both adjusted to the turmoil of life. There is a lot to fear in the days to come that family unrest between husband and wife may lead to a great social problem. 

Many would like to say that the feelings of the modern generation are mechanical. They have to start their lives amid uncertainty. Since they started going to school, they have had to live their lives in a competitive environment. One has to carry a strain on his or her mind from an early age. If you are not good at reading, you have to spend the day with the feeling that there is no security in the future. When it comes to the security of life, human feelings are gradually getting lost. To lighten their depressed minds, they fall into addiction to drugs and other narcotics. They have freed themselves amidst the storm in the sea of life. And thus, the notion of a sense of responsibility is disappearing from their minds. 

Human values are secondary to the current education system. Marks and job-oriented education never give moral knowledge of family relationships. The family relationship is such a sacred bond that it cannot be achieved on the same day. It depends a lot on the environment of the house. The way family members maintain a relationship with each other has an impact on the children. The direct teacher of the child is the parent. From an early age, they have been observing the behaviour of their parents. Children look closely at the conversation and the behaviour of their parents, like how the parents are treating their own parents, what kind of relationship they are maintaining between their brothers and sisters, etc. In a home where there is a positive sense of relationship, the future of the children will be happy. And in a home that does not have an environment to understand the value of the relationship, the future family relationships of the child are also filled with potholes. 

Today, the younger generation is in the grip of drugs. In Assam, only about 10 percent of the population consumes alcohol at present, but given the free circulation of alcohol, the number is going to reach 50 percent soon. Similarly, about 40 percent of the people in Assam consume tobacco. About 50 percent of people use gutkha items. Most of the new generation that is emerging today has a taste of items like Shikhar, Bimal, and Rajnigandha in their mouths. Proof of that are the walls and doorsteps of the schools and colleges, which are made dirty with spittle. An intoxicated person’s world is different. They don’t know anything about the healthy atmosphere of a home, the heavenly relationship between husband and wife, or the value of children. If you have money in hand, you will be in the grip of intoxication. When there is no money, the household items start selling one by one. The wife is beaten when she interrupts him, destroying the property. Fading up with this kind of behaviour, the wife abandons her husband. Sometimes there is a trial in court. In most cases, the events go haywire over time. In front of our eyes, many houses have been destroyed due to the influence of alcohol or intoxicants. But people who do politics don’t think of these as problems. That’s why the focus is on higher sales of alcohol. If the social organisations do not take the lead and save society in this regard, then in the near future, the court will be filled with cases of husband and wife’s quarrels. 

Today’s generation is digitally literate. With the help of the internet, they get news from different parts of the world. The pornographic sites of the internet system are spreading horrors in society. It depicts women as objects of enjoyment. Women are being presented as commodities, not as human beings. Porno film addiction has also influenced them to behave rudely with their wives. If he is not satisfied with his wife, he forms a relationship with another woman. Of course, many women are also addicted to pornographic films and have developed illicit relationships with men. The result is that the wife leaves her husband and flees with another man, and the husband also leaves his wife and illegally accepts another lady. Illicit relationships have become a new social problem today. However, these incidents are only seen in ill-educated and unreformed families. But the rising number of such incidents signals a grim future.

There was paucity in our society before, too. But even if there was a shortage, people did not give up morality. The society that has been crushed by Corona is in a shambles today. The price rise of essential commodities is firing up all around. On the other hand, lack of work harrows the poor. Eighty crore needy people in our country are dependent on government schemes today. Maybe people are running their lives without an empty stomach. But their children have not been able to be enrolled in good educational institutions, and proper treatment is not available in cases of illness. They have no money to pursue a good education and cannot afford proper treatment due to the rise in the rise in the price  of medicine. Moreover, other expenses have gone up more than human food. Due to the increase in the cost of mobile recharges, TV recharges, cosmetics, bikes, scooty oil, people are not getting relief. People always have to carry anger in their heads. As a result, a fight has started between the husband and wife over the needs of the household. The distance between husband and wife begins to increase. Many have also been seen burying morality due to dearth. 

The reason for the unrest of many husbands and wives is their in-laws. Today’s daughter-in-law does not get married to a house to take care of her mother-in-law or father-in-law. The daughter-in-law also has a life of her own. When the wife gets pressure from her husband to take care of her mother-in-law, the turmoil in the family begins. If the wife in turn tells the husband about the wife’s parents as well, then the turmoil takes its final shape. The problem of in-laws can be solved with mutual understanding. That will require a broad mind, i.e., the mentality of being able to embrace everyone. The knowledge of treating people as human beings has to be instilled in the house from an early age. No parent will have to stay in an old-age home and not go around if the mentality of cooperation, sacrifice, love, and unselfishness is developed from an early age.

The cruel treatment of each other is also one of the reasons for the unrest in the husband-and-wife relationship. The relationship between a husband and wife is a love affair. There is no place for cruelty here. Both of them have to overcome cruelty with understanding. Every quarrel is a renewal of love. That is, every fight must be taken care of so that it revives the love between them. Physical or mental cruelty makes no one happy. Both of them will have to do homework to not create a cruel atmosphere in their home. When one is excited, the other must be able to master the technique of getting rid of the tension without any hesitation. Peace will come to the family only if the tension is calmed and arrangements are made to remove the unrest between both of them by discussing it with a cold head. 

Dowry is an old-fashioned disease of husband-and-wife unrest. Many husbands do not seek dowry during marriage but later keep telling their wives what they have brought from their parents’ house on small issues. Sometimes, even lightly or jokingly speaking, there is a rift between the two. In Assam, where there was no dowry system, nowadays dowry violence takes place frequently. After the husband and wife have developed a relationship in the storm of emotion, incidents of harassment of the wife by demanding different types of things or money have always taken place. The anti-dowry law has also failed to suppress it. Many families are breaking down today due to a lack of education about controlling greed. 

The differences in the atmosphere of the husband and wife’s home are also causing unrest in the relationship. Their thinking is also different, as the way of life in the two houses is different. It takes time for the wife to adjust herself to the environment of her husband’s home. If the husband abuses his wife on some pretext instead of explaining the atmosphere of his house, then their relationship starts to deteriorate. Similarly, even if the wife insists on applying the rituals of her parents’ home to her husband’s house, then there is unrest in the relationship between the two. Instead, if both of them avoid their own “ego” and negotiate which environment will be conducive to peace for both of them, then heavenly feelings will prevail in the relationship between the two. Thus, the outbreak of the divorce virus can be prevented. 

There is also a cure for the divorce virus. Its only medicine is well-educated and cultured minds. We have to educate our children well from our life experiences. We need to focus on widening and heightening the scope of the mind rather than building mansions. Instead of discussing how many pucca roofs we have built, what sophisticated equipment we have installed in the house, etc., if we can teach our children to feel the misery of the people, to love people selflessly, to cooperate, to support, and to embrace everyone, then they can build a happy family in the future. In a house where there is a lesson of human values rather than a house of stone and sand brick, the cool air of peace will always flow between the husband and wife. Spiritual happiness prevails in a “sanskari” home. Mental peace exists in a good and healthy relationship, not in an ultramodern building. Focus on decorating a home with love, affection, support, generosity, and sacrifice to make your child’s future happy. The world will be happy if you can carry on with you the feeling of unavailability, which makes it difficult to carry on with life. “Never marry the one you can live with; marry the one you cannot live without.”