Unchained Matrimony

No matter that the story of each of those Mills & Boons was basically the same — rich, handsome guy dumps sophisticated but uncaring socialite and instead, picks plain Jane as the love of his life and his wife — what was made clear to us was this particular, if I may call it so, Catholic view of love. That there was only one love of your life and it was for the rest of your life. Also that love and marriage came before baby and carriage; and that true love was about being patient and that first you needed to get to know each other, then feel comfortable, then hold hands, and then after many dates, kiss and then fall in love. Then, if the parents accept, get married in a grand ceremony. As in Hindi movies, the train would go through the tunnel and the flowers would touch each other and the bumblebees would dance.

It went without saying, though it was often said anyway, that sex was only for married people and that it was mostly for reproduction. Most images of Indian domesticity from the Hum Log generation on Doordarshan absolutely did not feature couples in bed.

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Fast forward to 35 years later. A brand firm I help run recently completed a survey of over 1,000 Indians who were online. Here are some of the findings:

One out of three Bharatiya naaris surveyed said that they had made love on the first date, and one out of four said that they had had sex with a stranger.

Over a quarter of the Indian women surveyed had been with someone else sexually, while being married or in a “serious relationship” — and one per cent to two per cent of the ladies had been with over 25 people while being married or in that serious relationship. So much for the pativrata image, and so much for the belief that only men are the polyamorous ones.

Over 30 per cent of the women who took the survey said they were not strictly straight — and about half of them were curious about trying a same-sex partner, and the other half already had done so! And these numbers are higher than that for men. So much for Section 377.

Even more interestingly, 57 per cent of the ladies said that love doesn’t need to be there for sex to happen and an astounding 55 per cent of them now say there does not have to be just one partner after marriage. Yes, Sister Philomena, this is the new India, and sorry about all the effort you took in convent school.

The corresponding numbers for Indian men are actually demure compared to these, in some cases, but still off the charts.

This is a very different India from what is projected in our newspapers and soap operas. A very different India from what the religious fundamentalists go on about.

Can we blame the West?

So is this a new India, and does one blame Western culture for it all?

Truth is, the similar numbers in surveys we see from the West are actually more conservative. Yes, we’re friskier than the Yanks. On second thought, that’s not hard to believe when you think about how we got to be 1.3 billion people. There’s got to have been a whole lot of friskiness going on, for a long, long time.

Perhaps, like someone generalised, the Americans are liberal on the outside but sexually conservative in reality — while we Indians may be just the opposite. Absolutely conservative at first glance, but startlingly liberal about matters sexual when you look closer.

One glance at politics might help confirm that. Poor Bill Clinton was vilified endlessly in the front pages of leading newspapers for his one tryst with Monica Lewinsky. While, in those very years, India went on under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was living in with Mrs. Kaul. Even today, I can’t imagine the US electing as head of state a man like our Prime Minister, who had parted ways with his wife.

But perhaps, India has always been this way. So where did this all come from?

Who is afraid of infidelity?

We are, after all, the country that built the world’s greatest monument to the sexual arts — and wrote the guidebook that went with it.

More tellingly, perhaps, the Hindu marriage vows are among the few in the world that have had no specific reference to fidelity. Living together for long, yes. But nothing to the tune of “thou shalt not commit adultery”.

In a piece that writer Devdutt Pattanaik wrote recently, he starts by speaking of swans that mate for life. They don’t actually. Of the 8.7 million species of living things on earth, almost none display monogamy. That alone should say something — that monogamy is unnatural, from an evolutionary point of view.

But Pattanaik goes on to talk of a wide variety of sexuality in our myth — of Krishna having eight chief wives and 16,100 junior wives. Of not just Draupadi who had five husbands, but Jatila who had seven and Marisha who had 10. Of Nair women who have traditionally had multiple relationships. Apart from the kings and queens who pretty much did what they pleased with who they pleased. And how it was all quite acceptable.

So, perhaps, historically we’ve always had a more liberal culture.

Something that was then suppressed by two waves of moderation that came in. First, with the Mughals, who brought a more “man can do all, woman can’t” culture. Followed by the Brits, who brought a “one man, one woman, one marriage” outlook to our laws. But maybe those influences are waning.

A new normal
From my friends in the jewellery business, I hear that spends on weddings are going down, not up. As are the weddings themselves. Many are deciding not to marry at all, or to postpone it indefinitely.

I, for one, don’t believe in the institution of marriage. I used to be married, ended it a while ago, and much prefer being a father than being a husband. I completely believe in family, though.

I have kids outside of my marriage too, and there’s nothing illegitimate about them. They’re perfectly legal citizens of India, as I am, and there’s no need for a certificate and shower of rice from some old fogies to make them socially any more acceptable — which is basically what marriage to me is.

The only technical purpose I see of marriage — apart from making sherwani stitchers and invitation card printers rich — is to make sure inheritance happens. A simple will and testament ensures that. The rest to me is a waste of time, effort and money to accomplish nothing at all. Better to donate the money or keep it for your kids. Or to spend it on traveling the world.

Increasingly, I find that I’m not alone. There’s a growing bunch of us who are family people, as well as single. Polygamous, as well as dedicated to our kids. Living separately — sometimes in the same house, and sometimes in different ones but living with love. Loving more than one person at a time, and the kids being cool with it.

Life and love are no longer about the one man, one woman into the sunset thing any more. Certainly, not for a great many of us.

It’s an old fallacy that you can only love one person at a time. Our lives are much richer — as were those of our forefathers and foremothers — by loving more than one at the same time. Sure, it may not be for everybody. But, just as certainly, monogamy isn’t for everybody either.

And the sooner we realise it, the happier we all will be. Oh, and a very happy Valentine’s Day everybody!

Mahesh Murthy is an entrepreneur and investor who typically does not write about love.